Once upon a time there was a small farmer living in Wendron parish, not far from the church-town. 'Thaniel Teague was his name. This Teague happened to walk into Helston on a Furry-day, when the Mayor and townspeople dance through the streets to the Furry-tune. In the evening there was a grand ball given at the Angel Hotel, and the landlord very kindly allowed Teague—who had stopped too late as it was—to look in through the door and watch the gentry dance the Lancers.
Teague thought he had never seen anything so heavenly. What with one hindrance and another 'twas past midnight before he reached home, and then nothing would do for him but he must have his wife and six children out upon the floor in their night-clothes, practising the Grand Chain while he sang—
Out of my stony griefsBethel I'll raise!
Out of my stony griefsBethel I'll raise!
The seventh child, the babby, they set down in the middle of the floor, like a nine-pin. And the worst of it was, the poor mite twisted his eyes so, trying to follow his mammy round and round, that he grew up with a cast from that hour.
'Tis of this child—Joby he was called—that I am going to tell you. Barring the cast, he grew up a very straight lad, and in due time began to think upon marrying. His father's house faced south, and as it came easier to him to look north-west than any other direction, he chose a wife from Gwinear parish. His elder brothers had gone off to sea for their living, and his sister had married a mine-captain: so when the old people died, Joby took over the farm and worked it, and did very well.
Joby's wife was very fond of him, though of course she didn't like that cast in his looks: and in many ways 'twas inconvenient too. If the poor man ever put hand on plough to draw a straight furrow, round to the north 'twould work as sure as a compass-needle. She consulted the doctors about it, and they did no good. Then she thought about consulting a conjurer; but being a timorous woman as well as not over-wise, she put it off for a while.
Now, there was a little fellow living over to Penryn in those times, Tommy Warne by name, that gave out he knew how to conjure. Folks believed in him more than he did himself: for, to tell truth, he was a lazy shammick, who liked most ways of getting a living better than hard work. Still, he was generally made pretty welcome at the farm-houses round, for he could turn a hand to anything and always kept the maids laughing in the kitchen. One morning he dropped in on Farmer Joby and asked for a job to earn his dinner; and Joby gave him some straw to spin for thatching. By dinner-time Tom had spun two bundles of such very large size that the farmer rubbed his chin when he looked at them.
"Why," says he, "I always thought you a liar—I did indeed. But now I believe you can conjure, sure enough."
As for Mrs. Joby, she was so much pleased that, though she felt certain the devil must have had a hand in it, she gave Tom an extra helping of pudding for dinner.
Some time after this, Farmer Joby missed a pair of pack-saddles. Search and ask as he might, he couldn't find out who had stolen them, or what had become of them.
"Tommy Warne's a clever fellow," he said at last. "I must see if he can tell me anything." So he walked over to Penryn on purpose.
Tommy was in his doorway smoking when Farmer Joby came down the street. "So you'm after they pack-saddles," said he.
"Why, how ever did you know?"
"That's my business. Will it do if you find 'em after harvest?"
"To be sure 'twill. I only want to know where they be."
"Very well, then; after harvest they'll be found."
Home the farmer went. Sure enough, after harvest, he went to unwind Tommy's two big bundles of straw-rope for thatching the mow, and in the middle of each was one of his missing pack-saddles.
"Well, now," said Joby's wife, "that fellow must have a real gift of conjurin'! I wonder, my dear, you don't go and consult him about that there cross-eye of yours."
"I will, then," said Joby; and he walked over to Penryn again the very next market-day.
"'Cure your eyes,' is it?" said Tommy Warne. "Why, to be sure I can. Why didn't you ax me afore? I thought youlikedsquintin'."
"I don't, then; I hate it."
"Very well; you shall see straight this very night if you do what I tell you. Go home and tell your wife to make your bed on the roof of the four-poster; and she must make it widdershins, turnin' bed-tie and all against the sun, and puttin' the pillow where the feet come as a rule. That's all."
"Fancy my never thinkin' of anything so simple as that!" said Joby. He went home and told his wife. She made his bed on the roof of the four-poster, and widdershins, as he ordered; and they slept that night, the wife as usual, and Joby up close to the rafters.
But scarcely had Joby closed an eye before there came a rousing knock at the door, and in walked Joby's eldest brother, the sea-captain, that he hadn't seen for years.
"Get up, Joby, and come along with me if you want that eye of yours mended."
"Thank you, Sam, it's curin' very easy and nice, and I hope you won't disturb me."
"If 'tis Tommy Warne's cure you're trying, why then I'm part of it; so you'd best get up quickly."
"Aw, that's another matter, though you might have said so at first. I'd no notion you and Tommy was hand-'n-glove."
Joby rose up and followed his brother out of doors. He had nothing on but his night-shirt, but his brother seemed in a hurry, and he didn't like to object.
They set their faces to the road and they walked and walked, neither saying a word, till they came to Penryn. There was a fair going on in the town; swing-boats and shooting-galleries and lillybanger standings, and naphtha lamps flaming, and in the middle of all, a great whirly-go-round, with striped horses and boats, and a steam-organ playing "Yankee Doodle." As soon as they started Joby saw that the whole thing was going around widdershins; and his brother stood up under the naphtha-lamp and pulled out a sextant and began to take observations.
"What's the latitude?" asked Joby. He felt that he ought to say something to his brother, after being parted all these years.
"Decimal nothing to speak of," answered Sam.
"Then we ought to be nearing the Line," said Joby. He hadn't noticed the change, but now he saw that the boat they sat in was floating on the sea, and that Sam had stuck his walking-stick out over the stern and was steering.
"What's the longitude?" asked Joby.
"That doesn't concern us."
"'Tis west o' Grinnidge, I suppose?" Joby knew very little about navigation, and wanted to make the most of it.
"West o' Penryn," said Sam, very sharp and short. "'Twasn' Grinnidge Fair we started from."
But presently he sings out "Here we are!" and Joby saw a white line, like a popping-crease, painted across the blue sea ahead of them. First he thought 'twas paint, and then he thought 'twas catgut, for when the keel of their boat scraped over it, it sang like a bird.
"That was the Equator," said Sam. "Now let's see if your eyes be any better."
But when Joby tried them, what was his disappointment to find the cast as bad as ever?—only now they were slewing right the other way, towards the South Pole.
"I never thought well of this cure from the first," declared Sam. "For my part, I'm sick and tired of the whole business!" And with that he bounced up from the thwart and hailed a passing shark and walked down its throat in a huff, leaving Joby all alone on the wide sea.
"There's nice brotherly behaviour for you!" said Joby to himself. "Lucky he left his walking-stick behind. The best thing I can do is to steer along close to the Equator, and then I know where I am."
So he steered along close to the Line, and by and by he saw something shining in the distance. When he came nearer, 'twas a great gilt fowl stuck there with its beak to the Line and its wings sprawled out. And when he came close, 'twas no other than the cock belonging to the tower of his own parish church of Wendron!
"Well!" said Joby, "one has to travel to find out how small the world is. And what might you be doin' here, naybour?"
"Is that you, Joby Teague? Then I'll thank you to do me a good turn. I came here in a witch-ship last night, and the crew put this spell upon me because I wouldn't pay my footing to cross the Line. A nice lot, to try and steal the gilt off a church weather-cock! 'Tis ridiculous," said he, "but I can't get loose for the life o' me!"
"Why, that's as easy as ABC," said Joby. "You'll find it in any book of parlour amusements. You take a fowl, put its beak to the floor, and draw a chalk line away from it, right and left—"
Joby wetted his thumb, smudged out a bit of the Equator on each side of the cock's nose, and the bird stood up and shook himself.
"And now is there anything I can do for you, Joby Teague?"
"To be sure there is. I'm getting completely tired of this boat: and if you can give me a lift, I'll take it as a favour."
"No favour at all. Where shall we go visit?—the Antipodes?"
"No, thank you," said Toby. "I've heard tell they get up an' do their business when we honest folks be in our beds: and that kind o' person I never could trust. Squint or no squint, Wendron's Wendron, and that's where I'm comfortable."
"Well, it's no use loitering here, or we may get into trouble for what we've done to the Equator. Climb on my back," said the bird, "and home we go!"
It seemed no more than a flap of the wings, and Joby found himself on his friend's back on one of the pinnacles of Wendron Church and looking down on his own farm.
"Thankin' you kindly, soce, and now I think I'll be goin'," said he.
"Not till I've cured your eyesight, Joby," said the polite bird.
Joby by this time was wishing his eyesight to botheration; but before he could say a word, a breeze came about the pinnacles, and he was spinning around on the cock's back—spinning around widdershins— clutching the bird's neck and holding his breath.
"And now," the cock said, as they came to a standstill again, "I think you can see a hole in a ladder as well as any man."
Just then the bells in the tower below them began to ring merrily.
Said Joby, "What's that for, I wonder?"
"It looks to me," said the cock, "as if your wife was gettin' married again."
Sure enough, while the bells rang, Joby saw the door of his own house open, and his own wife come stepping towards the church, leaning on a man's arm. And who should that man be but Tommy Warne?
"And to think I've lived fifteen years with that woman, and never lifted my hand to her!"
Said the bird, "The wedding is fixed for eleven o'clock, and 'tis on the stroke now. If I was you, Joby, I'd climb down and put back the church clock."
"And so I would, if I knew how to get to it."
"You've but to slide down my leg to the parapet: and from the parapet you can jump right on to the string-course under the clock."
Joby slid down the bird's leg, and jumped on to the ledge. He had never before noticed a clock in Wendron Church tower; but there one was, staring him in the face.
"Now," cried his friend, "catch hold of the minute-hand and turn!" Joby did so—"Widdershins!" screamed the bird: "faster! faster!" Joby whizzed back the minute-hand with all his might.
"Aie, ul—ul—oo! Lemme go! 'Tis my arm you're pullin' off!" 'Twas his own wife's voice in his own four-poster. Joby had slid down the bed-post and caught hold of her arm, and was workin' it round like mad from right to left.
"I ax your pardon, my dear. I was thinkin' you was another man's bride."
"Indeed, I must say you wasn't behavin' like it," said she.
But when she got up and lit a candle, she was pleased enough. For Joby's eyes were as straight as yours or mine. And straight they have been ever since.
When first the Trinity Brothers put a light out yonder by the Gunnel Rocks, it was just a trifling makeshift affair for the time—none of your proper lightships with a crew of twelve or fourteen hands; and my father and I used to tend it, taking turn and turn with two other fellows from the Islands. I'm talking of old days. The rule then— they have altered it since—was two months afloat and two ashore; and all the time we tossed out there on duty, not a soul would we see to speak to except when the Trinity boat put off with stores for us and news of what was doing in the world. This would be about once a fortnight in fair weather; but through the winter time it was oftener a month, and provisions ran low enough, now and then, to make us anxious. "Was the life dreary?" Well, you couldn't call it gay; but, you see, it didn't kill me.
For the first week I thought the motion would drive me crazy—up and down, up and down, in that everlasting ground-swell—although I had been at the fishing all my life, and knew what it meant to lie-to in any ordinary sea. But after ten days or so I got not to mind it. And then there was the open air. It was different with the poor fellows on the Lighthouse, eighteen miles to seaward of us, to the south-west. They drew better pay than ours, by a trifle; but they were landsmen, to start with; and cooped in that narrow tower at night, with the shutters closed and the whole building rocking like a tree, it's no wonder their nerves wore out. Four or five days of it have been known to finish a man; and in those times a lighthouse- keeper had three months of duty straight away, and only a fortnight on shore. Now he gets only a fortnight out there, and six weeks to recover in. With all that, they're mostly fit to start at their own shadow when the boat takes them off.
But on the lightship we fared tolerably. To begin with, we had the lantern to attend to. You'd be surprised how much employment that gives a man—cleaning, polishing, and trimming. And my father, though particular to a scratch on the reflector, or the smallest crust of salt on the glass, was a restful, cheerful sort of a man to bide with. Not talkative, you understand—no light-keeper in the world was ever talkative—but with a power of silence that was more comforting than speech. And out there, too, we found all sorts of little friendly things to watch and think over. Sometimes a school of porpoises; or a line of little murrs flying; or a sail far to the south, making for the Channel. And sometimes, towards evening, the fishing-boats would come out and drop anchor a mile and a half to south'ard, down sail, and hang out their riding lights; and we knew that they took their mark from us, and that gave a sociable feeling.
On clear afternoons, too, by swarming up the mast just beneath the cage, I could see the Islands away in the east, with the sun on their cliffs; and home wasn't so far off, after all. The town itself, which lay low down on the shore, we could never spy, but glimpsed the lights of it now and then, after sunset. These always flickered a great deal, because of the waves, like little hills of water, bobbing between them and us. And always we had the Lighthouse for company. In daytime, through the glass, we could watch the keepers walking about in the iron gallery round the top: and all night through there it was beckoning to us with its three white flashes every minute. No, we weren't exactly gay out there, and sometimes we made wild weather of it. Yet we did pretty well; except for the fogs, when our arms ached with keeping the gong going.
But if we were comfortable then, you should have seen us at the end of our two months, when the boat came off with the relief, and took us on shore. John and Robert Pendlurian were the names of the relief; brothers they were, oldsters of about fifty-five and fifty; and John Pendlurian, the elder, a widow-man same as my father, but with a daughter at home. Living in the Islands, of course I'd known Bathsheba ever since we'd sat in infant-school; and what more natural than to ask after her health, along with the other news? But Old John got to look sly and wink at my father when we came to this question, out of the hundred others. And the other two would take it up and wink back solemn as mummers. I never lost my temper with the old idiots: 'twasn't worth while.
But the treat of all was to set foot on the quay-steps, and the people crowding round and shaking your hand and chattering; and everything ashore going on just as you'd left it, and you not wishing it other, and everybody glad to see you all the same; and the smell of the gardens and the stinking fish at the quay-corner—you might choose between them, but home was in both; and the nets drying; and to be out of oilskins and walking to meeting-house on the Sunday, and standing up there with the congregation, all singing in company, and the women taking stock of you till the newness wore off; and the tea-drinking, and Band of Hopes, and courants, and dances. We had all the luck of these; for the two Pendlurians, being up in years and easily satisfied so long as they were left quiet, were willing to take their holidays in the dull months, beginning with February and March. And so I had April and May, when a man can always be happy ashore; and August and September, which is the best of the fishing and all the harvest and harvest games; and again, December and January, with the courants and geesy-dancing, and carols and wassail-singing. Early one December, when he came to relieve us, Old John said to me in a haphazard way, "It's all very well for me and Robert, my lad; for us two can take equal comfort in singin' 'Star o' Bethl'em' ashore or afloat; but I reckon 'tis somebody's place to see that Bathsheba don't miss any of the season's joy an' dancin' on our account."
Now, Bathsheba had an unmarried aunt—Aunt Hessy Pendlurian we called her—that used to take her to all the parties and courants when Old John was away at sea. So she wasn't likely to miss any of the fun, bein' able to foot it as clever as any girl in the Islands. She had the love of it, too—foot and waist and eyes all a-dancing, and body and blood all a-tingle as soon as ever the fiddle spoke. Maybe this same speech of Old John's set me thinking. Or, maybe I'd been thinking already—what with their May-game hints and the loneliness out there. Anyway, I dangled pretty close on Bathsheba's heels all that Christmas. She was comely—you understand—very comely and tall, with dark blood, and eyes that put you in mind of a light shining steady upon dark water. And good as gold. She's dead and gone these twelve years—rest her soul! But (praise God for her!) I've never married another woman nor wanted to.
There, I've as good as told you already! When the time came and I asked her if she liked me, she said she liked no man half so well: and that being as it should be, the next thing was to put up the banns. There wasn't time that holiday: like a fool, I had been dilly-dallying too long, though I believe now I might have asked her a month before. So the wedding was held in the April following, my father going out to the Gunnel for a couple of days, so that Old John might be ashore to give his daughter away. The most I mind of the wedding was the wonder of beholding the old chap there in a long-tailed coat, having never seen him for years but in his oilskins.
Well, the rest of that year seemed pretty much like all the others, except that coming home was better than ever. But when Christmas went by, and February came and our turn to be out again on the Gunnel, I went with a dismal feeling I hadn't known before. For Bathsheba was drawing near her time, and the sorrow was that she must go through it without me. She had walked down to the quay with us, to see us off; and all the way she chatted and laughed with my father as cheerful as cheerful—but never letting her eyes rest on me, I noticed, and I saw what that meant; and when it came to goodbye, there was more in the tightening of her arms about me than I'd ever read in it before.
The old man, I reckon, had a wisht time with me, the next two or three weeks; but, by the mercy of God, the weather behaved furious all the while, leaving a man no time to mope. 'Twas busy all, and busy enough, to keep a clear light inside the lantern, and warm souls inside our bodies. All through February it blew hard and cold from the north and north-west, and though we lay in the very mouth of the Gulf Stream, for ten days together there wasn't a halliard we could touch with the naked hand, nor a cloth nor handful of cotton-waste but had to be thawed at the stove before using. Then, with the beginning of March, the wind tacked round to south-west, and stuck there, blowing big guns, and raising a swell that was something cruel. It was one of these gales that tore away the bell from the lighthouse, though hung just over a hundred feet above water-level. As for us, I wonder now how the little boat held by its two-ton anchors, even with three hundred fathom of chain cable to bear the strain and jerk of it; but with the spindrift whipping our faces, and the hail cutting them, we didn't seem to have time to think ofthat. Bathsheba thought of it, though, in her bed at home—as I've heard since—and lay awake more than one night thinking of it.
But the third week in March the weather moderated; and soon the sun came out and I began to think. On the second afternoon of the fair weather I climbed up under the cage and saw the Islands for the first time; and coming down, I said to my father:
"Suppose that Bathsheba is dead!"
We hadn't said more than a word or two to each other for a week; indeed, till yesterday we had to shout in each other's ear to be heard at all. My father filled a pipe and said, "Don't be a fool."
"I see your hand shaking," said I.
Said he, "That's with the cold. At my age the cold takes a while to leave a man's extremities."
"But," I went on in an obstinate way, "suppose she is dead?"
My father answered, "She is a well-built woman. The Lord is good."
Not another word than this could I get from him. That evening—the wind now coming easy from the south, and the swell gone down in a wonderful way—as I was boiling water for the tea, we saw a dozen fishing-boats standing out from the Islands. They ran down to within two miles of us and then hove-to. The nets went out, and the sails came down, and by and by through the glass I could spy the smoke coming up from their cuddy-stoves.
"They might have brought news," I cried out, "even if 'tis sorrow!"
"Maybe there was no news to bring."
"'Twould have been neighbourly, then, to run down and say so."
"And run into the current here, I suppose? With a chance of the wind falling light at any moment?"
I don't know if this satisfied my father: but I know that he meant it to satisfy me, which it was pretty far from doing. Before daylight the boats hoisted sail again, and were well under the Islands and out of sight by breakfast-time.
After this, for a whole long week I reckon I did little more than pace the ship to and fro; a fisherman's walk, as they say—three steps and overboard. I took the three steps and wished I was overboard. My father watched me queerly all the while; but we said no word to each other, not even at meals.
It was the eighth day after the fishing-boats left us, and about four in the afternoon, that we saw a brown sail standing towards us from the Islands, and my father set down the glass, resting it on the gunwale, and said:
"That's Old John's boat."
I took the glass from him, and was putting it to my eye; but had to set it down and turn my back. I couldn't wait there with my eye on the boat; so I crossed to the other side of the ship and stood staring at the Lighthouse away on the sky-line, and whispered: "Come quickly!" But the wind had moved a couple of points to the east and then fallen very light, and the boat must creep towards us close-hauled. After a long while my father spoke again:
"That will be Old John steerin' her. I reckoned so: he've got her jib shakin'—that's it: sail her close till she strikes the tide-race, and that'll fetch her down, wind or no wind. Halloa!— Lad, lad! 'tis all right! See there, that bit o' red ensign run up to the gaff!"
"Why should that mean aught?" asked I.
"Would he trouble to hoist bunting if he had no news? Would it be there, close under the peak, if the news was bad?—and she his own daughter, his only flesh!"
It may have been twenty minutes later that Old John felt the Gunnel current, and, staying the cutter round, came down fast on us with the wind behind his beam. My father hailed to him once and twice, and the second time he must have heard. But, without answering, he ran forward and took in his foresail. And then I saw an arm and a little hand reached up to take hold of the tiller; and my heart gave a great jump.
It was she, my wife Bathsheba, laid there by the stern-sheets on a spare-sail, with a bundle of oilskins to cushion her. With one hand she steered the boat up into the wind as Old John lowered sail and they fell alongside: and with the other she held a small bundle close against her breast.
"Such a whackin' boy I never see in my life!"—These were Old John's first words, and he shouted them. "Born only yestiddy week, an' she ought to be abed: an' so I've been tellin' her ever since she dragged me out 'pon this wildy-go errand!"
But Bathsheba, as I lifted her over the lightship's side, said no more than "Oh, Tom!"—and let me hold her, with her forehead pressed close against me. And the others kept very quiet, and everything was quiet about us, until she jumped back on a sudden and found all her speech in a flood.
"Tom," she said, "you're crushin' him, you great, awkward man!" And she turned back the shawl and snatched the handkerchief off the baby's face—a queer-looking face it was, too. "Be all babies as queer as that?" thought I. Lucky I didn't say it, though. "There, my blessed, my handsome! Look, my tender! Eh, Tom, but he kicks my side all to bruises; my merryun, my giant! Look up at your father, and you his very image!" That was pretty stiff. "I declare," she says, "he's lookin' about an' takin' stock of everything"—and that was pretty stiff, too. "So like a man; all for the sea and the boats! Tom, dear, father will tell you that all the way on the water he was as good as gold; and, on shore before that, kicking and fisting—all for the sea and the boats; the man of him! Hold him, dear, but be careful! A Sunday's child, too—
'Sunday's child is full of grace…'
And—the awkward you are! Here, give him back to me: but feel how far down in his clothes the feet of him reach. Extraordinar'! Aun' Hessy mounted a chair and climbed 'pon the chest o' drawers with him, before takin' him downstairs; so that he'll go up in the world, an' not down."
"If he wants to try both," said I, "he'd best follow his father and grandfathers, and live 'pon a lightship."
"So this is how you live, Tom; and you, father; and you, father-in-law!" She moved about examining everything—the lantern, the fog-signals and life-buoys, the cooking-stove, bunks and store-cupboards. "To think that here you live, all the menkind belongin' to me, and I never to have seen it! All the menkind did I say, my rogue! And was I forgettin' you—you—you?" Kisses here, of course: and then she held the youngster up to look at his face in the light. "Ah, heart of me, will you grow up too to live in a lightship and leave a poor woman at home to weary for you in her trouble? Rogue, rogue, what poor woman have I done this to, bringing you into the world to be her torture and her joy?"
"Dear," says I, "you're weak yet. Sit down by me and rest awhile before the time comes to go back."
"But I'm not going back yet awhile. Your son, sir, and I are goin' to spend the night aboard."
"Halloa!" I said, and looked towards Old John, who had made fast astern of us and run a line out to one of the anchor-buoys.
"'Tisn't allowed, o' course," he muttered, looking in turn and rather sheepishly towards my father. "But once in a way—'tis all Bathsheba's notion, and you mustn' askme," he wound up.
"'Once in a way'!" cried Bathsheba. "And is it twice in a way that a woman comes to a man and lays his first child in his arms?"
My father had been studying the sunset and the sky to windward; and now he answered Old John:
"'Tis once in a way, sure enough, that a boat can lay alongside the Gunnel. But the wind's falling, and the night'll be warm. I reckon if you stay in the boat, Old John, she'll ride pretty comfortable; and I'll give the word to cast off at the leastest sign."
"Once in a way"—ah, sirs, it isn't twice in a way there comes such a night as that was! We lit the light at sunset, and hoisted it, and made tea, talking like children all the while; and my father the biggest child of all. Old John had his share passed out to him, and ate it alone out there in the boat; and, there being a lack of cups, Bathsheba and I drank out of the same, and scalded our lips, and must kiss to make them well. Foolishness? Dear, dear, I suppose so. And the jokes we had, calling out to Old John as the darkness fell, and wishing him "Good night!" "Ou, aye; I hear 'ee," was all he answered. After we'd eaten our tea and washed up, I showed Bathsheba how to crawl into her bunk, and passed in the baby and laid it in her arms, and so left her, telling her to rest and sleep. But by and by, as I was keeping watch, she came out, declaring the place stifled her. So I pulled out a mattress and blankets and strewed a bed for her out under the sky, and sat down beside her, watching while she suckled the child. She had him wrapped up so that the two dark eyes of him only could be seen, staring up from the breast to the great bright lantern above him. The moon was in her last quarter, and would not rise till close upon dawn; and the night pitchy dark around us, with a very few stars. In less than a minute Bathsheba gave a start and laid a hand on my arm.
"Oh, Tom, what was that?"
"Look up," said I. "'Tis the birds flying about the light."
For, of course, our light always drew the sea-birds, especially on dull nights, and 'twas long since we had grown used to the sound of their beating and flapping, and took no notice of it. A moment after I spoke one came dashing against the rigging, and we heard him tumble into the sea; and then one broke his neck against the cage overhead and tumbled dead at our feet. Bathsheba shivered as I tossed him overboard.
"Is it always like this?" she whispered. "I thought 'twas only at the cost of a silly woman's fears that you saved men's lives out here."
"Well," said I, "this is something more than usual, to be sure."
For, looking up into the circle of light, we could see now at least a hundred birds flying round and round, and in half an hour's time there must have been many hundreds. Their white breasts were like a snowstorm; and soon they began to fall thick upon deck. They were not all sea-birds, either.
"Halloa!" said I, "what's the day of the month?"
"The nineteenth of March."
"Here's a wheatear, then," I said. "In a couple of weeks we shall have the swallows; and, a couple of weeks after, a cuckoo, maybe. So you see that even out here by the Gunnel we know when spring comes along."
And I began to hum the old song that children sang in the Islands:
The cuckoo is a pretty bird,He sings as he flies:He brings us good tidings.He tells us no lies:He sucks the sweet flow-ersFor to make his voice clear,And when he says "Cuckoo!"The summer is near.
The cuckoo is a pretty bird,He sings as he flies:He brings us good tidings.He tells us no lies:He sucks the sweet flow-ersFor to make his voice clear,And when he says "Cuckoo!"The summer is near.
The cuckoo is a pretty bird,He sings as he flies:He brings us good tidings.He tells us no lies:He sucks the sweet flow-ersFor to make his voice clear,And when he says "Cuckoo!"The summer is near.
Bathsheba's eyes were wet for the poor birds, but she took up the song, crooning it soft-like, and persuading the child to sleep:
O, meeting is a pleasure,But parting is grief,An inconstant loverIs worse than a thief;For a thief at the worstWill take all that I have;But an inconstant loverSends me to my grave.
O, meeting is a pleasure,But parting is grief,An inconstant loverIs worse than a thief;For a thief at the worstWill take all that I have;But an inconstant loverSends me to my grave.
O, meeting is a pleasure,But parting is grief,An inconstant loverIs worse than a thief;For a thief at the worstWill take all that I have;But an inconstant loverSends me to my grave.
Her hand stole into mine as the boy's eyes closed, and clasped my fingers, entreating me in silence to look and admire him. Our own eyes met over him, and I saw by the lantern-light the happy blush rise and spread over neck and chin and forehead. The flapping of the birds overhead had almost died away, and we lay still, watching the lighthouse flash, far down in the empty darkness.
By and by the clasp of her hand slackened. A star shot down the sky, and I turned. Her eyelids, too, had drooped, and her breath came and went as softly and regularly as the Atlantic swell around us. And my child slept in her arms.
Day was breaking before the first cry awoke her. My father had the breakfast ready, and Old John sang out to hurry. A fair wind went with them to the Islands—a light south-wester. As the boat dropped out of sight, I turned and drew a deep breath of it. It was full of the taste of flowers, and I knew that spring was already at hand, and coming up that way.
Troy Town, 5 December, 1894.
My Dear Prince,—I feel sure that you, as a sympathetic student of western politics and manners, must be impatient to hear about our first Parish Meeting in Troy; and so I am catching the earliest post to inform you that from a convivial point of view the whole proceedings were in the highest degree successful. And if Self-Government by the People can provide a success of the kind in that dull season when people as a rule are saving up for Christmas, I hardly think our Chairman stretched a point last night when he said, "This evening will leave its mark on the history of England." Indeed, some inkling of this must have guided us when we met, a few days before, and agreed to postpone our usual Tuesday evening Carol-practice in order to give the New Era a fair start. And I am told this morning that the near approach of the sacred season had a sensibly pacific influence upon the counsels of our neighbours at Treneglos. The parishioners there are mostly dairy-farmers, and party feeling runs high. But while eggs fetch 2d. apiece (as they do, towards Christmas) there will always be a disposition to give even the most unmarketable specimens the benefit of any doubt.
We were at first a good deal annoyed on finding that the Act allowed Troy but eleven Parish Councillors. We have never had less than sixty-five on our Regatta Committee, and we had believed Local Self-Government to be at least as important as a Regatta. We argued this out at some length last night, and the Chairman—Lawyer Thoms— admitted that we had reason on our side. But his instructions were definite, and he could not (as he vivaciously put it) fly in the face of the Queen and two Houses of Parliament. We saw that his regret was sincere, and so contented ourselves with handing in seventy-two nomination papers for the eleven places, just to mark our sense of the iniquity of the thing.
In another matter we worked round the intention of the Act more successfully. We have never been able to understand why the Liberal party in the House of Commons should object to Local Self-Government taking place in public-houses. The objection implies a distrust of the people. And it so happens that down here we always take a glass of grog before inaugurating an era; we should as soon think of praetermitting this as of launching a ship without cracking a bottle on her stem. So we asked the Chairman, and finding there was no law to prevent us, we ordered in half a dozen trays from the "King of Prussia," across the way. The Vicar, who is a particular man about his food and drink, pulled out a pocket Vesuvius and a bottle of methylated spirit, and boiled his kettle in the ante-room.
Well, there we were sitting in the Town Hall, as merry as grigs, each man with his pipe and glass, and ready for any amount of Self-Government. And the Chairman stood up and briefly explained the business of the meeting. He said the Parish Councils Act was the logical result of Magna Charta, and would have the effect of making us all citizens of our own parish; and that as the expense of this would come upon the rates, we should endeavour to use our hardly won enfranchisement with moderation. "We had met to choose eleven good men and true to administer the parish business for the coming year, or to nominate as many good men and true as we pleased. If more than eleven were nominated"—this was foolishness, for he could see there was hardly a man in the room that hadn't a nomination paper in his hand—"he would ask for a show of hands, and any candidate defeated upon this might demand a poll. He hoped we would vote in no spirit of sectarian or partisan bitterness, but as impartial citizens jealous only for the common weal; at the same time he was not in favour of letting down the Squire, Sir Felix Felix-Williams, too easily."
So we handed up our nomination papers, and while the Chairman and overseers were checking them off by the register, Old Pilot James got upon his legs.
He said that as long as he could remember—man and boy—he had always practised carols in that very Town Hall upon the first Tuesday in December. The Vicar—as soon as he had done boiling the kettle in the next room—would come in and confirm his words. The practices were held on the first Tuesday in December, and on each successive Tuesday until St. Thomas's Day, when they had one extra. If St. Thomas's Day fell on a Tuesday, then the extra practice would be on Wednesday. He had received no notice of the change.
Thomas Rabling rose and explained that at a meeting held last Saturday, the singers had agreed to postpone the first practice in view of Local Self-Government. Mr. James had been present and had not objected.
George William Oke—a blockmaker, who had never sung a carol or attended a practice in his life—stood up and said, rather unnecessarily, that this was the firsthe'dheard of it.
Old Pilot James, answering Mr. Rabling, admitted that he might have been present at the meeting on Saturday. But he was deaf, as everybody knew—and Mr. Rabling no less than the rest—and hadn't heard a word of what was said. If he had, he should have objected. But, deaf or not deaf, he still took a delight in singing; and, if only as a matter of principle, he was going to sing, "God rest you merry, gentlemen," then and there. He was an old man, and they might turn him out if they liked; but he warned them it would be brutal, and might lead to a summons.
Well, the Chairman was making a long business of the nomination papers: so just to pass the time we let the old man sing. It seemed churlish, too, not to join in the chorus; and by and by the whole meeting was singing with a will. We sang "Tidings of Comfort and Joy," and "I saw Three Ships," and theCherry-tree Carol, and "Dives and Lazarus." We had come to that verse where Dives is carried off to sit on the serpent's knee, when the Chairman rose and said that only five of the nomination papers were spoilt, and he declared sixty-seven ladies and gentlemen to be duly nominated.
We all pricked up our ears at the word "ladies." However, there turned out to be one lady only; and when the Chairman read out her name, her husband—a naval pensioner, William Carclew—stood up and explained that he had only meant it for a joke upon the old woman, just to give her a start, and he hoped it would go no farther. This seemed fair and natural enough; but the Chairman said if Mrs. Carclew wished to withdraw her name she had better do so at once by word of mouth. So Carclew had to run home and fetch her. While he was gone we finished "Dives and Lazarus."
In five minutes' time back came Carclew, followed by Mrs. Carclew, who announced—in a rich brogue—that since her man had conspired to put this fool's trick upon her, why now she would stand, begob! "Arrah now, people, people, and a gay man he'll look houlding the babby, while I'm afther superinthendin' the Parush!" So the Chairman declared her duly nominated. It will surprise me if she does not head the poll on the 17th.
The Chairman now invited us to interrogate the candidates, if we wished. By this time we were getting pretty well into the way of Self-Government, and all enjoying it amazingly. Of course our lady candidate, Mrs. Carclew, had the first few questions; but these were mostly jocular and domestic, and I am bound to say the lady gave as good as was brought. The only sensible question came from Old Pilot James, who asked if she believed in the ballot. For his part he had never given a vote for anybody since Forster brought in the ballot in 'seventy-one. He favoured peace and quiet; and he liked to walk up to the hustings and give his vote, and hear 'em say, "Well done!" or "You '—' old scoundrel!" as the case might be. He didn't mind being called "a '—' old scoundrel," provided it was said to him by a gentleman who weighed his words. Since Forster brought in the ballot he had always gone to the poll regular. He always took his paper and wrote opposite the names: "Shan't say a word. Got my living to get. Yours obediently, Matthias James"—and would advise everybody else to do the same.
After him, Renatus Hansombody, carpenter, rose at the back of the hall and announced that he had a question to put to the Doctor. The Doctor, by the way, is one of the most popular of the candidates.
"I should like," said Mr. Hansombody, "to ask the Doctor if he will kindly explain to the company Clauses 5, 6, and 13 of the new Act?"
The Chairman protested that this would occupy more time than the meeting had to spare.
"In that case," said Mr. Hansombody, "I will confine myself to a test question. The Act provides that the Chairman of a Parish Meeting is to be elected by the Meeting. Now suppose the votes for two gentlemen are equal. In such a case what would the Doctor advise? For until you have a Chairman elected, there is no Chairman to give a casting vote."
The Doctor thought that, since we had long ago elected a Chairman by acclamation, the question was superfluous.
"And you call him a straightforward man!" Mr. Hansombody exclaimed, turning round on the Meeting. "What I say is, are we to have pusillanimity in our first Parish Council? What I say is, that a gentleman who gives a working man such an answer to such a question—"
At this point the door opened and a shrill voice asked, "Is Hansombody here?"
"I am here," said Hansombody, "to expose impostors!"
"Because if so, he must please come home at once. Mrs. Hansombody's cryin'-out!"
"I always said," remarked Old Pilot James, "that this cussed Act would scare half the women in the Parish before their time."
"Beggin' your pard'n, Doctor," began his denouncer lamely.
"Not at all, not at all," said the Doctor. "We must keep these matters altogether outside the sphere of party politics." (Loud cheering.)
"Then I'll have to ask you to step along with me."
The two political opponents picked up their hats, and left the room together.
The Chairman rose as the door closed behind them. "I think," he said, "this should be a lesson to us to accept the Act in the spirit in which it was given. If nobody else wishes to ask a question, I will now take a show of hands: but I warn you all it'll be a dreary business."
At this, the first hint of tedium, the company rose, drained their glasses, and made for the door, leaving the sixty-six remaining candidates to vote for themselves.
"Well," Mr. Rabling said to me, as we stood in the street; "so far, this here Parish Meeting might be like any other Parish Meeting in the Kingdom!"
I doubted, but did not contradict him.
"There's one thing," he added; "Ironmonger Loveday has laid in a whole stock of sixpenny fire-balloons for to-night: and there isn't a breath of wind. His boy's very clever with the scissors and paste: and he've a-stuck a tissue-paper text on each—'Success to the Charter of our Liberties,' and 'Rule Britannia' and 'God Speed the Plough'; and nothing more than the sixpence charged."
Simple, egregious, delectable town! As I leaned out last night, watching the young moon and smoking the last pipe before bed-time, a dozen of these gay balloons rose from the waterside and drifted on the faint north wind, seaward, past my window. Another dozen followed, and another, until from one point and another of the dark shore a hundred balloons soared over the water, challenging the stars.