Tregennis jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Shewanted to pay!”
“Well, that was proper sensible of ee, too, Tom,” admitted his wife as she took down the unstamped letter from the chimney-piece, turned it over, and pushed her thumb under the flap.
ITwas the Thursday before Good Friday, and in the Tregennis household there was great excitement and joyous expectancy. Mrs. Tregennis had sung softly to herself all the while she was dressing, greatly to the annoyance of the Naval Officer’s wife, who was invariably irritated when people hummed. She was irritated, too, by Mrs. Tregennis’s happy manner when she carried in the downstairs sitting-room breakfast; and again when breakfast was over and was being cleared away.
Then, however, curiosity got the better of hurt dignity. “What time do the ladies come?” she asked.
“At ten minutes after six, ma’am.”
“Ah, then perhaps I had better defer my call until to-morrow. They will have many little matters to occupy them this evening.”
“How do you mean ‘call,’ Ma’am?” asked Mrs. Tregennis anxiously, feeling that there was probably trouble ahead.
“I mean that I shall, of course, visit them at once,” replied Annabel’s mother in her most affected manner. “If I approve of them, and find that they belong to my own social grade, I shall most certainly take them up and show them every civility.”
“I don’t think the young ladies will want to trouble about visitors and such,” retorted Mrs. Tregennishotly. “They be all for bein’ out and sittin’ on the rocks, be our ladies, and they’ve got each other, an’ they don’t want nothin’ more. And they’m just of the very best, ma’am, our ladies; truly lovely people they be.”
“They did not scruple to send you an unstamped letter, these people, who are of the very best; but perhaps you think the stamp rubbed off in the post?”
“No’m, Idon’tthink that, there was never no stamp on at all, there was no gummy corner, nor nothin’. ’Tis lucky that my husband had more sense than me an’ took it in. The ladies gave it to some one to post, I guess, with a penny for a stamp, and the stamp was never put on. Save a penny like that! Them!” Mrs. Tregennis hurried from the room with her heavily loaded tray.
To Mrs. Tregennis the hours of that Thursday passed very slowly. The rooms for the ladies had been cleaned and prepared the day before, but more than once she went into the upstairs sitting-room, and tried to improve the hang of the curtains and the arrangement of the flowers that looked so many more than they really were because of their reflection in the overmantel glass. Once she ran hurriedly upstairs and again inspected her drawer of bedroom towels to make quite sure that she had put out the biggest and the best. Once, too, she walked into the ladies’ bedroom and rather anxiously inspected the cake of pink soap that fitted so neatly into the perforated tray of the soap-dish, andwondered if it was just exactly what they would really like the best of all. In the middle of the morning two trunks arrived as luggage in advance. When these had been carried upstairs and placed at the foot of the bed the carman’s foot-marks were removed with a duster, and nothing further remained to be done.
When Tommy burst in from school soon after four o’clock, his first breathless words were, “Have my ladies come yet, Mammy?” and so restless and excited was he that he could scarcely be induced to have tea.
When he was released from the table he ran out into the alley, and, refusing all invitations to dig on the sands, he played round his own doorway so that he might catch the first glimpse of his ladies when they actually did arrive. Just before half-past six, however, when he peeped round the corner and saw them coming, he was seized with shyness and ran hastily into the kitchen, and hid in the cupboard among the coals.
Before they could shake hands Mrs. Tregennis must give hers a last wipe on the oven cloth, while Tregennis rubbed both of his slowly up and down the legs of his trousers. Then there was much talking, but as they all talked together no one heard distinctly anything that anyone else said.
When finally one voice arose above the rest it belonged to the Blue Lady. “Oh, how deliciously those chops are sizzeling; we’re just as hungry as hunters.” Then, “Where’s Tommy?” she asked.
Mrs. Tregennis looked around puzzled, then put her head out of the window. “He was here but a minute since, excited as could be.”
Then she bethought herself of the cupboard and opened the door revealing her handsome among the coals. In his eagerness to hide he had fallen, and hands and face were black with coal-dust.
“Come forth, Tommy,” he was commanded, and, grinning shyly, he obeyed.
“Now, stand perfectly still,” and, stooping, the Blue Lady selected a cleanish spot on his face and there she kissed him.
Tommy, completely forgetting his orders, flung his arms around her neck, leaving impressions in coal-dust on her linen collar and on her face.
“It isn’t of the least consequence,” she assured Mrs. Tregennis. “They’ll both wash.”
As they walked upstairs to their own sitting-room the Blue Lady slipped her hand into the Brown Lady’s saying, “Oh, Dorothea, isn’t it good to be here? Just good, good, good!”
Before they had quite finished tea there was a muffled sound on the door and some one walked into the room.
“We’ve had a beautiful tea, Mrs. Tregennis. We’ve each eaten a huge chop, but, as usual, I didn’t get my fair share of cream.” Then the Blue Lady stopped abruptly for she read in her friend’s face that something was wrong. Turning she saw that a stranger stood in the room.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, rising, with a touchof hauteur in her voice, “I thought it was Mrs. Tregennis who came in when the door opened.” Then she waited.
The stranger responded with what was meant to be a winning smile. “My little girl and I are in the downstairs sitting-room,” she began to explain, “and I came in now——”
“Ah, I understand,” interrupted the Blue Lady, more warmth in her tone. “You have moved down there for us, and came in here now absentmindedly?”
“Not at all,” exclaimed the Naval Officer’s wife, as she sat down unasked. “I came to welcome you to Draeth.”
Meeting with no answer she continued. “There is no society at all here, no intellectual companionship, nothing but the commonplace life of an insignificant fishing-town. Lest you should be dull, Annabel, my babe, and I will place all our spare hours at your disposal.”
“I am sure you mean very kindly.” The Brown Lady, who still dabbed at jam and cream with her knife, grew hot when she heard the calm even tones proceeding. “But we have come down here purposely to avoid the rush of the S——; that is, to be quiet and alone. I am sure you will understand when I say that we wish for no companionship but that of each other, during the short time we are here.”
As the Blue Lady spoke she opened the door, and with a slight inclination bowed the visitor from the room.
“Oh, Margaret!” The Blue Lady flicked crumbs across the table with unerring aim.
“No, Margaret, it’s no good being flippant and playing like that, Iwillspeak. You were very rude to her, and you know you were.”
“Yes, I think I was, but courteously rude. How elsecouldyou treat a woman like that. Let’s have Mrs. Tregennis up and find out who in the name of fortune she is, and after that we’ll run down to the sea.”
The Blue Lady rang the bell, then singing, she whirled the little Brown Lady round and round the room:
“Oh, for the smell of the salt and the weed,Oh, for the rush of the waves,Oh, for the cliffs where the white sea-gulls breed,And oh, for the murmuring caves!Here when the beacon light flashes at night,Here when the winter winds roar,Here when——”
“Oh, for the smell of the salt and the weed,Oh, for the rush of the waves,Oh, for the cliffs where the white sea-gulls breed,And oh, for the murmuring caves!
“Oh, for the smell of the salt and the weed,
Oh, for the rush of the waves,
Oh, for the cliffs where the white sea-gulls breed,
And oh, for the murmuring caves!
Here when the beacon light flashes at night,Here when the winter winds roar,Here when——”
Here when the beacon light flashes at night,
Here when the winter winds roar,
Here when——”
“I’m out of breath,” panted the Brown Lady.
“Do stop this jigging round, and this ridiculous impromptu rhyming. You were just like this when we were here before, but being nearly a year older now you ought to know better. Here’s Mrs. Tregennis, so youmuststop.”
“Mrs. Tregennis,” the Blue Lady burst forth. “Who is she? Where did she come from? Why is she here? And how long does she mean to stay?”
“Oh, Miss, ’tis brave an’ sorry I be. I told her this morning as how you wouldn’t want to be taken up, but she would come. There she be now ringin’ and ringin’ her bell. Always in a fanteague about somethin’, she be.”
“Well, go and see what she wants; all this can wait, for we’re going out.”
Hatless the two friends ran downstairs and out, in the fading light, to the sea.
From the very way in which the bell was ringing Mrs. Tregennis knew that no pleasant moments awaited her in the downstairs sitting-room.
First of all there was a complaint about supper. It had been ordered for a quarter past seven; it was now ten minutes past seven, and the cloth was not even laid. “You must remember that I am most particular about punctuality, Mrs. Tregennis, nothing displeases me more than to have meals late. I hope that because two strangers have come here for a few weeks you will not neglect me and my child.”
Mrs. Tregennis stood, silent, and outwardly patient. “Do you know at all who they are?” continued her exasperating lodger. “The taller one said they had come down from London to avoid the rush of the s——. Then she stopped. What could there be beginning with ‘s’ that they should wish to escape?”
“Supper begins with ‘s,’ and it’ll be fine an’ late ma’am, if I don’t go and see about it.” And Mrs. Tregennis escaped from the room.
When she returned the naval officer’s wife spoke with excitement. “I’ve found out,” she cried. “They’re shop girls!” and paused, to give dramatic emphasis to her words.
As Mrs. Tregennis appeared quite unmoved she continued. “To escape from the rush of the s——! Of course there must be sales on in the London shops now, and they’ve managed to save up money enough to come down here to rest until the sales are over, then they will go back again to work. You had better see that they pay beforehand for all they have, or you may find yourself in Queer Street when they go away.”
“Mrs. Radford!” Mrs. Tregennis had never before addressed her lodger by name, so it was all the more impressive. “Mrs. Radford, I’ll not hear one word against our ladies. They haven’t thought fit to tell me who they be, and ’tis no business of mine. Shop girls or no, I cannot say, but they’m real ladies, whatever they be, and I’ll not hear a word against them, so there’s where ’tis to.”
“You need not become angry, my good woman. Their appearance is certainly not in their favour, for they are almost shabbily dressed; plain blue and brown Norfolk suits that are by no means new. When they arrived I looked through the window most particularly to see their style of dress, and I may say I was by no means favourably impressed.”
“If you’d like to know, ma’am, they’re the very clothes they wore down here last year, an’ they weren’t new then. Very sootable to Draeth they beto my way of thinkin’. But I don’t want to talk about them to you at all, if you don’t mind, ma’am. It seems sort of an insult to our ladies to be discussin’ their clothes an’ such. And if you’ll ring when you’ve finished, ma’am, I’ll come in again to clear away.”
ITwas perfect Easter weather. It was so hot that when you closed your eyes you thought it was the middle of summer, until you opened them and saw, high up on the cliffs, the leafless trees. Still, as always in Draeth, in spite of the heat, the air had that delightful freshness which results from the mingling of the sea-breezes with the winds which blow from the Cornish moorlands.
In every hedge myriads of primroses opened wide and startled eyes to the blue of the sky. Purple violets nestled among the green grass blades. Timidly the hart’s tongue fern unrolled the delicate green of its mitred leaf. The lords and ladies were in flower, and zealously guarded their secret within the closed, mysterious spathe. Over all the blackthorn shed snow-white petals, and the whole air was full of the intoxicating smell of the gorse.
In and out of the hedges darted the mating birds; chaffinches and yellow-hammers, thrushes and blackbirds; robins and linnets; and hedge-sparrows that are not sparrows at all. All together they sang the song of Love and of Springtime, while, on the house-tops in the town, the starlings mocked them all. Such faithful mockery, too, that when you were indoors it was truly bewildering, for you were sure that blackbirds and thrushes were perching on Mrs. Tregennis’s chimney pots, until the sweet whistleended with the ridiculous squawk that always betrays the starling, and lets you know that you have been befooled.
As the ladies sat at breakfast on Saturday morning a stumble on the stairs heralded Tommy’s approach.
He fumbled with the handle of the door, opened it wide, then remembered to knock and came in.
After a scarcely perceptible pause of indecision he walked to the Brown Lady. “A letter,” he said, and pushed it very deliberately into her hand.
“Oh, Tommy,” bemoaned the Blue Lady, “have you no letter for me?”
“There was three for ee yesterday mornin’, so ’tis the turn of she.”
He jerked his thumb at Miss Dorothea who tore open the flap of the envelope, saying, “That’s quite just, Tommy.”
But when she had opened out the folded sheet within, she gave an embarrassed exclamation and flushed deeply. “I’m very sorry, Margaret, but it’s for you. I didn’t look at the address, but just opened it.”
The Blue Lady took the open sheet and envelope, and, in her turn, reddened slightly. “I thought perhaps there might be a letter,” she remarked.
“Yes,” said the Brown Lady, and silence fell between them.
Totally misunderstanding this, Tommy tried to put matters right. “’Taint fair,” he said in a loud and angry voice. “There was three for ee yesterday,” and he snatched the letter from Miss Margaret as he spoke.
Unfortunately for Tommy, Mammy passed the open door at this moment.
“Oh, my dear soul,” she exclaimed, when the incident had been explained to her. “I telled ee the letter was for Miss Margaret. Go right away to wanst.”
“It didn’t really matter at all,” the Blue Lady interrupted. “And, you see, according to Tommy’s idea of justice it was quite wrong for the letter to be for me.”
But Mammy was angry, and holding a tearful and ruffled Tommy firmly by the hand she led him downstairs.
So the morning began badly. Mammy’s lips were tightly closed. Tommy ate his breakfast in sullen silence, standing instead of sitting to annoy Mammy, who took no notice of her son’s waywardness, and so made matters worse.
After breakfast Mrs. Tregennis held out a penny to Tommy, who was wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “See if you can get a bit of mint to Bridget’s, and be quick back.”
“I ain’t a-goin’ to fetch no more errands for ee to-day,” Tommy replied to his mother, raising his clear, blue, innocent eyes, and looking unflinchingly into hers.
“Oh, very well,” said Mammy with a sigh, making a feint of undoing her apron strings. “Then I must go to wanst myself, busy though I be.”
“Why can’t ee send Mabel, or Annie, or Ruthie?” objected Tommy in a determined voice.
“What!” said Mrs. Tregennis, “and let all the neighbours know as Tommy Tregennis isn’t to be trusted to fetch an errand for his Mammy? Never. I’ve got ’eaps an’ ’eaps of work to do, and ’tis very busy I be, but I’ll go for the mint myself.”
Then for the first time Tommy’s glance wavered; he held out his hand. “Give I the money,” he said, “I s’pose I must go this wanst. Give I the money,” and away he ran.
On his return he laid the mint on the kitchen table.
“There,” he said, “but I tell ee I ain’t goin’ to fetch no more errands all day.”
“No?” replied Mammy pleasantly, and hummed a little tune as she stripped off the leaves of the mint before chopping them up for the sauce.
Tommy waited a while. Then, “May I go and play on the beach now, Mammy?” he asked.
“Go just where you like, my son,” was the reply “and I hope you’ll spend a very happy morning wherever you be.”
Tommy left the house with a defiant exterior and a leaden feeling within. At play on the beach he lost his ball, which was a rather specially good one, and found, in exchange, two much smaller ones that would not bounce, and therefore offered little in the way of compensation.
At dinner time Mammy was very cheerful, Daddy was silent and Tommy was sad.
After dinner he ran off hastily lest more errands should be required of him, and, for a time, forgot his sorrows in trying to recover by force his ownball from Jimmy Prynne. Jimmy had found it lying snugly in the hollow of a rock where Tommy now remembered he had hidden it for safety. When he had regained possession he removed from the tail of his Jersey cap the two small balls that had lost their bounce; these he kicked disgustedly in the direction of Jimmy Prynne, and turned contemptuously away.
He made up his mind to enjoy to the full the happiness of being thoroughly naughty. No other children were on the Skiddery Rock, but Tommy slid down its steeply polished side again and again, and still nothing tore.
Then he decided that he would get his feet just as wet as it was possible for feet to be. So he threw his ball out to sea and waded in after it; and threw it again and waded again; and again, and yet again, until a wetter pair of boots and stockings than those worn by Tommy Tregennis it would have been impossible to find. This distinction achieved, a little voice within became unpleasantly clamorous; not the warning voice of conscience, but the insistent voice of fear. Tommy waded out of the water and wished with all his heart that his feet were dry.
A few moments he spent in deliberation, then turning his back upon the cold, wet sea he walked slowly in the direction of Granny Tregennis’s house. At each step he took the water squelched unpleasantly inside his boots, and each squelching step brought him nearer to an angry mother’s justifiable wrath.
“Granny,” he whispered, poking his head through the kitchen window. “Granny.”
Although it was such a warm day Granny Tregennis sat in the rocking chair by the kitchen fire.
“Yes, ma lovely?” she replied. “An’ where have ee been all day, ma handsome? Saturday, too, an’ your Granny left all alone.”
“Come home along o’ me, Granny,” pleaded Tommy.
“Why, whatever for should I be comin’ home along o’ ee?” demanded Granny Tregennis.
“Come home along o’ me,” repeated Tommy, “come with me to my Mammy;please, Granny.”
“An’ why?”
“Somehow I’ve gotten my feet all wet,” and Tommy, who by this time was inside the quaint, low-ceilinged room, looked ruefully down at the thick, sodden boots.
“Keziah Kate,” called Granny, “take thicky lamb home.”
“Taint the same thing,” argued Tommy, “’tisn’t a bit the same. Aunt Keziah Kate do allus be a-comin’, she be. Come yourself, Granny, come home along of I.”
So persistent was the pleading that for the first time in many weeks Granny put on bonnet and shawl and emerged from her doorway.
It was very slow progress that the two made along the uneven cobbles. When they were about half-way home they saw Mrs. Tregennis in the distance.
“Sh-sh-sh!” warned Tommy, putting a grimy finger across his lips.
But all caution was vain; Mammy looked up, saw them, turned and walked towards them.
“Why, Granny,” she asked, “whatever’s brought ee out-o’-doors, and evenin’ time, too?”
Granny and Tommy felt equally guilty. Granny, as the elder, felt called upon to explain. “Tommy’s gotten his feet wet, Ellen. Don’t be hard on ’e.”
“So, my son, you’m a naughty boy, be you, and goes to hide behind your Granny’s skirts? Bringin’ your Granny out like this, Tommy Tregennis, because you’m afraid to come home alone. I’d take shame, an’ I was you.”
While Granny Tregennis sorrowfully retraced her steps Tommy accompanied his mother with sinking heart.
Tregennis was sitting by the kitchen fire. “I’ve gotten my feet wet, Daddy,” volunteered Tommy.
“That you have!” he replied, looking down at the tell-tale boots.
“Take ’em off quickly,” ordered Mammy, but Tommy was unequal to the task of grappling with the wet, knotted laces.
“Take ’em off quickly!” he in his turn urged his Daddy, who felt like a conspirator as Tommy confidingly raised first one foot, then the other, that the offending boots might be unlaced and removed.
“Now my stockin’s, Daddy,” he pleaded in a whisper; but here Mrs. Tregennis interposed.
“You’m not goin’ to have clean stockin’s on late Saturday afternoon, Tommy, so now you know,” she asserted decidedly, as she came forward with a sturdypair of strap shoes, and lifting Tommy to a chair proceeded to put them on over the wet stockings.
IT WAS VERY SLOW PROGRESS THAT THE TWO MADE ALONG THE UNEVEN COBBLES.
IT WAS VERY SLOW PROGRESS THAT THE TWO MADE ALONG THE UNEVEN COBBLES.
“I can’t bear it, Mammy; I won’t have they,” Tommy cried.
There was no resisting Mammy’s strength; the shoes were not only on, but buttoned.
“I won’t have they, Mammy. Lemme go to bed.”
“You may go to bed the minute you’ve had your tea, my son; but first run an’ get me two cabbages to Bridget’s.”
A downward movement on Tommy’s part drew a warning from Mrs. Tregennis. “Don’t ee remove they shoes, my son. Now run off quickly and get me two cabbages to Bridget’s.”
As Mrs. Tregennis spoke she put some coppers into Tommy’s hand. Tommy’s fingers remained limp and the pennies rolled over the kitchen floor. At the same time he kicked off the strap shoes and sent them to the farthest corner of the room.
Then Tommy was whipped, and in spite of cries and kicks the strap shoes were again buttoned on his wet, resisting feet. “Now go and get me two cabbages to Bridget’s,” commanded Mrs. Tregennis.
“Shan’t fetch no more errands for ee, ever;” asseverated Tommy, his fingers clenched.
“Go an’ get me two cabbages to Bridget’s,” said Mrs. Tregennis, now punctuating each word with a slap, and Tommy’s sobs rose anew.
At this moment Aunt Keziah Kate entered. Tommy fled to her from the enemy, and buried his head in her clean white apron.
“What is ut, ma lovely?” Aunt Keziah Kate asked tenderly, as she stroked the tousled head.
By this time the Blue Lady had come downstairs to find out the cause of Tommy’s trouble.
“Go and get me two cabbages to Bridget’s,” once more repeated Mrs. Tregennis, while Daddy walked over to the soap-dish by the kitchen sink, and having taken from it a square of damp flannel wiped Tommy’s tearful eyes.
“Come, ma lovely!” said Aunt Keziah Kate, and
“Go!” ordered Mammy.
Still Tommy wavered.
“Go to Bridget’s, Tommy Tregennis, an’ get me two stockin’s.”
“If they’re for our dinner,” interrupted Miss Margaret, “we’d really prefer cabbages.”
Tommy looked up with the shadow of a smile, then, holding out his hand for the pennies, walked to the door. On the threshold, however, he paused for a moment, then returned to the kitchen, took the flannel which Daddy still held and vigorously rubbed his eyes.
“Shan’t let no-one see as ’ow I’ve been a-cryin’,” he explained, and ran off to fetch the errand.
After tea Tommy sat on Tregennis’s knee, while Tregennis took off the offending stockings, and rubbed the wet feet in front of the kitchen fire, the while a spirited conversation was carried on between the two.
“You shouldn’t never disobey your Mammy, Tommy.”
“Shan’t fetch no more errands, not never, for she.”
“An’ the ladies in the house, too.”
“Annie or Mabel can fetch they errands, I tell ee.”
“Your Mammy’s always workin’ so hard, too, Tommy. ’Eaps an’ ’eaps of work she do get through in the day.”
“I’ll not go never no more! Somebody else can fetch they cabbages and things.”
“When you haven’t got your Mammy an’ me you’ll be sorry you’m a naughty boy, Tommy.”
This was a subject of conversation which Tommy always discouraged.
“When you an’ Mammy do be dead,” he replied, “I shall get married quick, I shall. I shall marry Ruthie to wanst, else I shan’t have no one to look after me, I shan’t.”
Then the tousled head began to droop wearily, for it had been a day of sorrow. “Can’t talk to ee any more to-night, Daddy. I be too tired to talk to ee any more to-night. Put I to bed, Daddy.”
Mrs. Tregennis was upstairs laying the cloth for supper, so with clumsy hands Tregennis undressed the boy and tucked him tightly in his cot.
“Say ‘good-night’ to my Mammy for me, ’n, good-night, Daddy.”
The sleepy head burrowed into the pillow, while the long lashes drooped over the tired blue eyes.
Although Tommy still felt defiant he could not go to sleep in such an unfinished way. He heard a step on the creaking stair, and “Mammy,” he shouted, “good-night, Mammy.”
Mrs. Tregennis came into the room.
“Haven’t said no prayers yet, Mammy.”
“I shouldn’t say no prayers to-night,” Mrs. Tregennis advised; “not if I was you. Jesus ’e don’t love little boys what’s naughty.”
“Oh, yes, ’e do,” said Tommy, with conviction. Then, “’E don’t like ’em to be naughty, ’e don’t,” he added, “but ’e loves ’em all the same.”
Then Tommy said his prayers and the good-night kiss was exchanged.
Once more Tommy burrowed into the pillow and Mammy left the room.
But there was still one thing forgotten, and Tommy raised himself in his cot. “Daddy,” he called, “Daddy, you needn’t say good-night to my Mammy for me; I’ve said it to she myself.”
After this he lay down contentedly. Five minutes later he was asleep and the day of sorrows was ended.
THEsun shone in at the open windows so brightly on Easter Day that it wakened up Miss Margaret some time before Mrs. Tregennis came with the hot water and the early morning tea. She leaned on her elbow and looked out down the alley to the sea.
Under the corner of the next roof two starlings were busily engaged in nest-building. The father starling was very active, but cautious. He took quite unnecessary precautions to avoid detection on his foraging expeditions, precautions that only brought him the more definitely under notice.
Miss Margaret watched him with interest. Flying down to the cobbles he picked up, one by one, three pieces of straw. Returning to the rain-spout he perched on the prominent corner, holding the three straws cross-wise in his beak. He turned his head first to the left, then to the right; then to the left and right again, eagerly alert for possible dangers.
His grotesque movements attracted the attention of a milk-boy who was walking up the alley, a can of milk in either hand. Balancing one can on the cobbles the boy picked up a piece of sea-weed that was lying there, and aimed it at the corner of the rain-spout where it caught and hung. The starling opened his beak, dropped the straws and hurriedly soughtthe shelter of the eaves, an indignant, ruffled bird. After all, the boy had done him a good turn, for, when he had made quite sure that the enemy had withdrawn, he reappeared, seized the hanging seaweed and carried it to his waiting wife.
After this the church door opened; the world was waking up. In unofficial dress the verger swept out the dust of the week. It annoyed Miss Margaret to see that he did not take the responsibility of his own pile of dust. When it was all collected in the porch he swept it to the lower step, and from there to the cobbles of the alley. A few vigorous movements of his broom removed it from the immediate neighbourhood of the church door and scattered it artlessly among the uneven stones.
In the bedroom below Tommy also was awake. This Easter morning was an eventful one for him. He was going to wear a “noo sailor soot.” It was a suit with long trousers, the first long trousers Tommy had ever had. Uncle Sam, who was in the navy, had given him a real lanyard with a shrill whistle attached. Mammy had bought a new black silk handkerchief, too, to go under the white sailor-collar of the blouse. Naturally Tommy was eager to be dressed, and it was irksome to have to lie quietly in bed for so long.
At last Mammy had done all that was required for the ladies and it was Tommy’s turn next. It seemed a great waste of time to be washed and have your hair done, although, when the preliminaries were at an end and the new clothes were on, long trousers and all, it proved worth it.
“There, ma handsome,” said Mammy, admiringly, “youdobe in dandy-go-risset. Dressed to death and put to stand you be, my man!”
“Would my ladies like to see my noo soot, Mammy?” he asked, and followed the bacon and eggs into their sitting-room.
The ladies could not find words to express their admiration, but Mrs. Tregennis’s vocabulary was such that she could cope bravely with the situation.
“Ain’t he flish, Miss?” she asked, with pride. “Proper titched ’e be.”
The ladies felt that this exactly expressed what they wished to say.
“Dressed to death, ’e be, and thinks ’tis Sunday,” Mrs. Tregennis continued, and was leading Tommy from the room when he was hastily summoned by Miss Margaret, while Miss Dorothea handed him a large plate on which were two Easter eggs full of sweets; a chocolate donkey harnessed with wire and pink ribbon to a chocolate cart; a chocolate ship in full sail and three chocolate hares. One hare stood on its hind legs, one was in the act of running, while the brown body of the other lay stretched out flat upon the white china plate.
“Which’ll I eat first, and which’ll I give to Ruthie?” Tommy asked excitedly while the plate was being passed to him and before he yet held it in his hands.
Discussing these two important points with his mother he walked from the room.
Accompanied by Auntie Jessie and Ruthie, Tommy went to church. At first he was very devout; his newclothes helped to keep him in a state of spiritual exaltation. When the singing was over he wanted to go outside into the alley and blow his whistle. In the open window of Mrs. Ham’s cottage her parrot was calling. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,” it cried; and again, “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!” Tommy very much wished he could obey the summons, although he knew by experience that if he were there to reply to the persistent bird Polly would merely put her head on one side, turn slowly round on her perch, and refuse to speak another word.
At last the long service ended and he was free. “Where’ll I go till dinner time?” he asked as he ran into the kitchen.
Daddy suggested his Granny might like to see the long trousers and hear the whistle blown. Away Tommy sped and did not return until dinner was on the table.
After dinner Tommy went upstairs with Mammy to dress, but stayed behind in the bedroom when she returned to Daddy in the kitchen.
One Easter egg full of sweets he had given to Ruthie. Half the sweets in the other he had eaten himself, but all the chocolate animals were still intact. These he marshalled in a row on the big bed and wondered what game he should play.
First of all he loaded the chocolate cart with seaweed that had been thrown up by the tide on to the shore at the foot of the bed. The vehicle was not overloaded, for the stranded sea-weed was odd bits of coloured wool that did not weigh very heavy. TheseTommy carefully carted away to manure his potato-patch on the cliff at the extreme edge of the pillow.
In time this game palled and Tommy pondered. Chocolate hares were stupid, useless animals for a pretending game at sea; so he bit off first the head and then the tail of the one at full gallop.
After this he set aside the donkey and cart in favour of the ship in full sail. It was a fishing-boat; it was, in fact, his Daddy’s boat, “The Light of Home.”
One by one Tommy carried all his possessions but this from the big bed to the chest of drawers, where he arranged them according to a definite system of his own.
This work took some little time, but when it was accomplished he was able to give his undivided attention to the chocolate lugger. With care and precision he moulded the blankets and sheets into furrows across the bed, so that the “Light of Home” might sail with pride on the crest of the wave. His Daddy was aboard the lugger catchin’ ’eaps an’ ’eaps of fish. So he, Tommy, would have a noo mackintosh, real tarpaulin, too. His Daddy had promised him this the next big catch he had.
But Daddy always caught his fish at night-time, and here was the sun just streaming in at the window.
This must be remedied at once. By standing on a chair Tommy was able to reach the blind-cord; when he had pulled down the dark green blind there was a satisfactory gloom within the room.
Now a new difficulty arose. If it was real dark the “Light of Home” might lose her way, or, evenworse, she might be wrecked. Then Daddy an’ the ’eaps an’ eaps of fish, an’ the noo mackintosh would perish with her too.
Tommy knew all about the Eddystone. He knew that there were three men there, and that they had two months out and one month in. He knew, too, that the lighthouse was built on quite a small platform of rock. The inverted soap-dish made an excellent pretending rock, and on it Tommy placed a little paraffin lamp that always stood on the table by the bed.
At first when he lighted the lamp he turned the wick up far too high, and there was so much smoke and so big a flame that he could not possibly put the chimney in place. He turned it out slowly and was more successful in his second attempt, although even then he did not find the glass chimney at all easy to adjust. Proudly the “Light of Home” sailed round the inverted soap-dish and the smoking lamp. Still Daddy caught ’eaps an’ ’eaps of fish. But, alas! a storm arose, and the poor “Light of Home” listed in a truly terrifying manner.
The storm gave rise to a new idea. Daddy was no longer aboard the lugger. It was Granfäather Tregennis instead. Daddy was just a little new boy lying in a big fourposter bed. But there must be a light in Granny’s window to help Granfäather to sail safely home.
Tommy was in luck. As a rule there was no candle in Mammy’s bedroom, only the paraffin lamp. To-day there stood on the chest of drawers the ladies’ chinacandlestick, fitted with a quite new candle. Tommy pulled up a chair to the foot of the bed, lighted the candle and put the candlestick on the chair. Then he tilted it a little so that the light might shine through the rails at the foot of the bed, for the foot of the bed was the window of Granny’s room.
While these preparations were afoot the “Light of Home” had been lying neglected in the trough of a wave. Now she again began to sail over the furrowed bed clothes. But the storm was telling on her. Slowly but surely her outer coat was melting away, leaving sticky brown streaks on Tommy’s fingers and on the snowy whiteness of the clean bed-quilt.
“You hobjeck you! you article you! I’ll tell your fäather the minute he comes in.”
The “Light of Home” slipped through Tommy’s fingers. The Eddystone lurched over, fell from its soap-dish rock and was engulfed in the quilty billows below. Mrs. Tregennis rushed from the position she had taken up in the doorway, seized the lamp and extinguished the flame.
Tommy’s eyes dilated with fear. “Now I shall get it somethin’ awful!” he thought, and shrank against the erstwhile raging sea.
For once words failed Mrs. Tregennis. She looked at the big bed, whose counterpane was brown with chocolate streaks and black with paraffin smuts. She looked at her son, sticky, smutty and subdued. On the new white collar of the sailor blouse were the chocolate imprints of his restless fingers. Down the right leg of the new long trousers were splashes ofgrease. The room was thick with the smoke from the lamp and the smell was vile.
It was not often that Tommy was really whipped, and when Mammy opened the top long drawer of the chest of drawers with a sharp little jerk the tears welled up slowly in his big blue eyes. When she took from the drawer the supple cane that was so seldom used, and advanced towards him with grim determination, he broke into piteous sobs.
A quarter of an hour later a tearful Tommy sat limply on a chair in the kitchen; he wore his old blue trousers and his old red jersey top. Sunday though it was Mammy stood at the table and with brown paper and a hot iron removed the splashes of grease from the right leg of the new sailor suit. The dandy-go-risset suit of the early morning!
A painful silence lasted for several moments, then:
“Do ee love I any more, Mammy?”
Mrs. Tregennis rested the hot iron on the stand and looked fixedly at Tommy. “HowcanI love ee, Tommy Tregennis, when you’m such a naughty boy.”
“No,” Tommy’s voice broke. “I don’t s’pose ee do love I any more; but”—and now the voice was very pleading—“I do love ee brave an’ much, Mammy, quite so much as that,” and the two restless hands, from which all chocolate stains had been removed, were held more than half a yard apart.
Mrs. Tregennis showed no signs of relenting but gave all her attention to moving the iron lightly up and down over the stiff, brown paper.
The kitchen door opened and Miss Margaret walked in. In amazement she paused; first, because Tommy was in his very everyday clothes; secondly, because Mrs. Tregennis was ironing on Sunday afternoon. The ladies had been sitting down by the sea, surrounded by Easter calm, and were ignorant of the grim tragedy enacted in the Tregennis household.
Miss Margaret was horrified when she was put in possession of the facts. “Oh, Tommy!” her voice was very expressive and her face was very sad. “How more than dreadful it would have been if you’d been all burned up to nothing. Burned right up to nothing at all, only the soles of your new brown boots left lying upon the bedroom floor.”
Tommy shuddered and looked down at his feet.
“What would your Daddy and Mammy have done then?” Miss Margaret continued. “They’d have been left all alone just with the soles of your boots.”
This amused Tommy. He laughed.
Already the tragedy was being relegated to the background of his mind. He slipped off the chair, and, advancing to Mammy who was folding up the trousers, offered her the piece of pink ribbon that had harnessed the chocolate donkey to the chocolate cart.
“For keeps!” he explained.
The fact that Mammy accepted the gift was a sign that the feud was ended.
Along the kitchen floor, over the linoleum, was a strip of old carpet, put there partly to take the tread and partly to give a little extra comfort and keep the feetwarm at meal-times. In jumping across the floor Tommy pushed this out of place.
“Mind my best Brussels!” warned Mammy, playfully, and Tommy felt that he was indeed forgiven.
His joy thereupon became so exuberant that the strip of carpet was kicked entirely out of place.
Then Mrs. Tregennis became firm again. “Put that carpet straight to wanst,” she ordered, and reluctantly Tommy obeyed at one end of the strip.
“Now here,” said Mammy, pointing to the disarranged part at her feet.
“That be your end,” demurred Tommy, but the stern looks of both Mammy and Miss Margaret compelled him to adjust that end also.
Miss Margaret knew instinctively that in putting it to rights Tommy meant to flick up the whole strip and so plunge headlong into disgrace once more. With diplomacy and tact, therefore, and apparently unintentionally, she stood right on the middle of the strip and began to talk to Mrs. Tregennis.
Before Miss Margaret left the kitchen Tregennis came in from the front. Once more the story of Tommy’s mishap was repeated.
Tregennis turned to Miss Margaret. “I shall have to take ’e in hand myself, Miss,” he said slowly, “if so be as he isn’t a better boy.”
Miss Margaret left the kitchen and, smiling, told the Brown Lady of the awesome threat. Tregennis was a loving and entirely lovable man, but much too gentle, too simple and too kindly to cope with Tommy’s boisterous daring.
Downstairs in the kitchen gloom had again descended. Tommy stuck his hands in his pockets and looked up into his mother’s face. “Tell-tit,” he said, “oh, tell-tit,” and with the full vigour of his sturdy legs he kicked the carpet strip awry.
ITwas more than a week since Tommy’s Ladies had come to Draeth. Easter was over, and until Whitsuntide no more steamer-loads of Plymouth trippers would visit the little town. On landing the steamer passengers invariably followed the same plan. Presumably during the short voyage they had had enough of the sea, for on leaving the boat they at once trailed up the main street of Draeth, either in scattering groups or in twos. The groups included children: little girls with tightly curled hair and little boys in velvet suits. Sometimes the twos held each other’s hands, spoke little and looked down at the ground as they walked; sometimes they were parted by the whole width of the roadway, each seemingly indifferent to the presence of the other.
The groups looked in at the shop-windows until they were hungry; then, carrying bulging paper-bags, they retraced their steps and, sitting in sheltered corners among the rocks, looking out beyond the island to the open sea, they ate stolidly until the bags were empty. Later the tide came up and restored the beach to order, carrying out, even beyond the breakwater of the island, all the litter of paper bags, banana skins, orange peel, glass and tin—all mercifully washed outwards to the horizon until they became waterlogged and sank to the ocean floor.
On Easter Monday the ladies walked to a distant and secluded part of the coast and were happy all the morning in avoiding the rush of holiday-makers. From afar they watched the approach of the thronged steamers, and speculated idly as to the probable number of boatloads that would land. Because it was good for the watermen they were glad that the steamers came.
As they were leaving the house after dinner, a weary lady had approached them. Behind her stood another woman, equally weary, and a pale-faced, meek-eyed man. “Excuse me,” the first weary lady had said, addressing Miss Dorothea, “but will you be so very kind as to tell me where we can find the stocks?” she spoke with nervous eagerness. “You see, we are only here for the day.”
Miss Dorothea had directed her to the stocks just around the corner, and had followed the Blue Lady down the alley. But she was not to escape so easily. “Excuse me once more,” said the weary stranger, somewhat out of breath with running after her, “but is there anything else to be seen in Draeth; you see, we are only here for the day.”
On the following Monday, as they were walking up from the sands at dinner time, they were laughing over the Easter reminiscences, and comparing the beauty and stillness around them with the bustle and throng of the week before. Then they began to speak of Mrs. Radford. They found it very difficult to avoid her, although they had not responded to her early advances. Whenever they left the housethey were conscious that her eyes followed them until they were out of sight; she stood, barely concealed by the curtains of the window, to mark their return.
The Blue Lady was growing impatient; the unceasing spying annoyed her.
The Brown Lady saw not only the humour, but also the pathos, of Mrs. Radford’s actions. “But think, Margaret,” she said; “it isn’t real ill-nature that makes her so. It’s just a sort of jealousy; we have so much, and she has so little.”
“I don’t agree with you. She has a husband and a child, and money enough to enable her to live without effort.”
“Yes, she has all that, but she lacks absolutely the joy of living. You yourself possess this in so high a degree that you scarcely allow for its absence in others.”
“Ah, well,” sighed the Blue Lady, “I really will try to be more tolerant, but the woman irritates me beyond endurance.”
She ran upstairs to the sitting-room:
“Oh the wild joys of living,” she quoted, “the leaping from rock to——”
Her good resolutions were forgotten, for there, curled up on the sofa, sat Annabel. She was not an attractive child in appearance: she was too tall for her age, and, in spite of the fact that she was five years old, she spoke in a babyish manner which sounded unnatural and was, indeed, the result of affectation.
She was the first to speak. “Miss Magalet, ’tan I have dinner wiv ’oo?”
“No, Annabel, you most certainly cannot. Why don’t you speak plainly—Tommy does. And you must never again come up here when we are not in.”
“You have much nicer dinners than us,” continued the child; “me never has g’evy and meat, only beans and fings.”
“Poor mite!” said the Brown Lady below her breath.
Annabel had wriggled off the sofa and was pointing to a gay chocolate box on the mahogany wash-stand that served as a sideboard. “’S dem for Tommy?” she asked.
The Blue Lady lost patience. “Theywerefor Tommy,” she said, quite sharply; “but I don’t think they’re very good; they don’t seem quite fresh, so you can have them if you like.”
The child, completely satisfied, went downstairs to show her mother the gift.
“It’s no good,” said the Blue Lady, ashamed of her unkindness to a little child. “She’s exactly like her mother and I cannot like her.”
For dinner the ladies had ordered ox-tail soup, lamb and green peas, gooseberry tart and cream. So much Mrs. Radford learned when she peeped in at the kitchen door as Mrs. Tregennis was dishing up the second course.
“What very extravagant dinners they order.”
Mrs. Tregennis took no notice of the remark, but, stooping, closed the oven door, and, digging a fork into the joint, lifted it from the tin to the hot dish waiting on the fender. At that moment the upstairsbell rang. Mrs. Tregennis answered it and returned with the plates and the soup-tureen.
Mrs. Radford raised the lid of the tureen. “What delicious soup!” she remarked, “and what a lot they have left. They would never miss it, Mrs. Tregennis, if you would let me have some.”
There was no reply.
“Won’t you give me just a little—just enough for Annabel?”
Then Mrs. Tregennis spoke. “I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing!” she answered, indignantly. “Why, I wouldn’t take not even so much as a crumb of theirs, not even for my own Tommy, no, not if ’twas ever so!”
Even then Mrs. Radford was not ashamed. “A few green peas——” she began again.
“Notonegreen pea, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Tregennis, firmly, “and you’ll excuse me for sayin’ it, ma’am, but I really cannot understand as how you can ask for any such thing; so there’s where ’tis to.”
Mrs. Radford flushed hotly. “Well!you’llsee,” she said vindictively, “they’re living at too grand a rate, they are. Their money won’t last out, it won’t. You can’t say that you were not warned.”
Passing into her own room Mrs. Radford slammed the door, while Mrs. Tregennis carried the lamb, green peas and baked potatoes upstairs to the spendthrift ladies.
FORmore than three weeks it had been very fine on land, but at sea it was rough and stormy, and the water was churned up and thick. For boulter-fishing in the spring the sea must be clear. Because of the bad weather-conditions there was much poverty in Draeth. Between the end of September and the third week in April some of the fishermen had earned barely three pounds. Since Christmas the boats had not once been able to put out to sea. This meant that all through Lent, when the fish fetches record prices, there had not been a single catch.
The poverty of the fisher-folk pressed heavily on the tradespeople too. When children were almost starving they could not refuse to supply the homes with food. Certainly they entered in their credit ledgers the amounts that were due to them from this family or that, but they well knew that in many cases the reckoning was so great that it would take more than a lifetime to pay it off.
As it so often happens at times like these the most deserving found the least relief. The Prynnes, the Tregennises, the Williamses, the Darks and others shunned debt as they would have shunned the plague. Rather than ask for food to be supplied to them on credit they would starve. Day by day the hoard saved up against a rainy day grew less; for youmay be prepared to meet a rainy day, but when the rainy day lengthens into a rainy month then you feel the pinch. For many families in Draeth this was the time of fear. The ever-present question was: How much longer was it possible to hold out?
Then suddenly, when things were at their worst, the weather changed. The wind slewed round to another quarter, the turbid waters became clear, and the fisher-folk grew light-hearted, for at last the boats would put out to sea.
It was on the Monday of the last week in April that the fleet made preparations for sailing. Tregennis looked upon it as a lucky omen that on that very morning he had caught a rat on the “Light of Home.” For some days he had known the plaguey thing was there. Down in the cuddy-hole he had found an old coat of his bitten through in the sleeve. Some of the nets, too, had been gnawed in places, and he had had to be busy mending tackle. It is a grave matter when a rat boards a lugger, for there is no knowing how many more may follow. The four men on the “Light of Home” had laid trap after trap, temptingly baited, but without result.
Now this morning Tregennis had at last put an end to the plaguey varmint. As this trouble was overcome it was taken by the men as a sign that further good luck loomed ahead.
Miss Margaret went into the kitchen before breakfast and found Mrs. Tregennis packing the basket of food for Tregennis to take to sea.
“It do look a lot, don’t it, Miss? There isn’t muchroom on the boat, so you has to get it packed up tight as can be. They did oughter be back on Wednesday morning, but I puts in for a bit longer than that in case.”
“If you find your store of food running short, Tregennis,” advised Miss Margaret, “remember that you ought to chew a great number of times, forty-five chews to each bit of food I think it is, and then the supplies will last all the longer.”
“My dear life, Miss; ’e do just bolt his food.”
“Can’t seem to taste it, somehow, if I do keep it in my mouth,” Tregennis explained.
“He do eat his food too fast, Miss; I never knoo anyone eat so fast as ’e; I be always a-tellin’ ’e.”
“Well, he must practise this morning. Are you going to give him ham for breakfast, Mrs. Tregennis?”
“’Am?—no, miss—I’ll ’am ’en. He haven’t been to sea and caught no fish. If he don’t work neither shall he eat. That’s in the Bible, isn’t it, Miss?”
“Something like it,” agreed Miss Margaret.
“Yes, ’tis there, for sure. If a man will not work neither shall he eat. It don’t say nothin’ about a woman in like case.”
“Oh, well,” interrupted Tregennis, smiling good-humouredly. “Willnot work; but Iwillwork when there’s work to be done—the pity is so often wecan’t.”
“You’re both evading this question of chewing,” Miss Margaret complained. “It’s all the fashion now to chew. They say that if you follow this plan you only need half the usual amount of food. You see it all nourishes you then; otherwise half is wasted.”
“Sakes! Tom, you remember that!” admonished Mrs. Tregennis. “’An you too, Tommy, my man. Come here an’ listen to your Mammy. If there’s goin’ to be any savin’ in it every bite as you puts into your mouth you chews on forty-five times—— If so be as you can count so far,” she added, as an afterthought.
“One—two—three—four—five—six—seven,” began Tommy, in a dreary, sing-song voice, with incatchings of the breath.
“That’ll do,” interposed Miss Margaret, hastily. “I am quite sure, Tommy Tregennis, that you can count up to forty-five very nicely indeed,” and, laughing, she went upstairs.
After breakfast the ladies came down to see the boats leave the harbour with the tide.
“’Taint no good, Miss, after all,” Mrs. Tregennis called out gloomily as they passed the kitchen door.
“Oh, Mrs. Tregennis, why? I’m so sorry! Has the wind changed again?”
“Oh, not thefishin’, Miss, but thechewin’,” she hastened to explain. “Tom and Tommy was both tryin’ hard but by the time they’d chewed less an’ twenty chews they didn’t ’ave nothin’ left.”
“We was just chewin’ on nothin’,” added Tregennis, who was drying his face on the runnerin’ towel.
“T’ad all slippen down,” volunteered Tommy, looking up from lacing his boots.
Miss Margaret looked at them sorrowfully. “There, you see,” she declaimed, “it is just the universal finding. You will not allow yourselves to be improved!You do not wish to be nourished! You will not chew! Thus you waste half, nay, more than half, of the food you eat.”
Then, relapsing into her normal manner, “Perhaps I’m not quite justified in speaking,” she admitted, “for I know quite definitely I couldn’t chew forty-five times myself, and I haven’t been as enterprising as you, for I’ve never even tried.”
Tregennis picked up the basket of food that had led to the discussion, and Tommy and the ladies accompanied him to the quay where he boarded the “Light of Home.”
Sitting in the sunshine on the rocks, Tommy’s Ladies watched the fishing boats tack across to Polderry then veer slowly round and sail in a south-westerly direction. From Tregennis they knew that the fleet was making for Mevagissey, where they would shoot their nets and hope to get a good catch for baiting the boulters. In those waters they thought that the smaller fish, pollock, pilchards (not fit, at this time of the year, for food), herring and whiting would be plentiful.
To those who do not know, boulter-fishing seems a fairly easy occupation. The boats sail away with something trawling after them on the floor of the sea, and the fish is caught!
Actually it is one of the hardest bits of work a man can do. If the first shoot of the nets is successful the boulter is baited without delay, and the luggers may sail away at once far beyond the Eddystone to the fishing-grounds some fifty miles from Draeth. Often,however, it happens that the nets are shot two, three, or even four times before the men have fish enough to bait the hooks.
The boulter is made up of thick, weighted ropes. As each boulter is fitted with two thousand hooks, and as these hooks are fastened to it with cotton-line about eight or nine feet apart, it follows that the whole boulter is from three to four miles long.
All the two thousand hooks pass four times through the hands of the men on the lugger. First of all they must be baited, and after this they must be shot. To the end of the boulter that is shot first from the boat a cork buoy bearing a flag is fastened. This is called the dan. At the middle of the boulter is a second dan. “This,” as Tregennis had explained to the ladies, “do give a second chanst, for when once ’tis gone overboard you can’t never even say it do belong to ee. Anythin’ may ’appen to ’e, you can’t never tell.”
When the fish is caught on the two thousand deadly hooks these pass for the third time through the fishermen’s hands, for now they must be hauled. Lastly, when the lugger is back in the harbour, they must all be cleared, not cleared of the catch only, but of all the mutilated bits of bait. Then they are thoroughly cleaned, carefully coiled round and put away in readiness for the next time the boats are afloat.
Miss Margaret and Miss Dorothea were discussing the heaviness of the work and the hard lot of the fisher-folk as they watched the luggers sail away round the curve of the coast towards Mevagissey and the bait.
As they spoke a cormorant dived in front of them beneath the water.
“There!” said Miss Dorothea, indignantly. “Just as if it wasn’t enough for these people to have steam-trawlers, and weather and dog-fish in array against them! And now the cormorants are coming in flocks and are eating up all the smaller fish along the coast. It’s an arrant shame!”
It was just one o’clock. The last lugger had rounded the curve. The ladies picked up their books and walked slowly home over the polished rocks and along the firm wide stretch of sand that grew still wider as the tide flowed slowly out.