I. HOW I DINED AT THE “INDIAN QUEENS.”

The sensation was odd; for I could have made affidavit I had never
visited the place in my life, nor come within fifty miles of it.
Yet every furlong of the drive was earmarked for me, as it were, by some
detail perfectly familiar. The high-road ran straight ahead to a notch
in the long chine of Huel Tor; and this notch was filled with the yellow
ball of the westering sun. Whenever I turned my head and blinked, red
simulacra of this ball hopped up and down over the brown moors. Miles
of wasteland, dotted with peat-ricks and cropping ponies, stretched to
the northern horizon: on our left three long coombes radiated seaward,
and in the gorge of the midmost was a building stuck like a fish-bone,
its twisted Jacobean chimneys overtopping a plantation of ash-trees that
now, in November, allowed a glimpse, and no more, of the grey facade. I
had looked down that coombe as we drove by; and catching sight of these
chimneys felt something like reassurance, as if I had been counting, all
the way, to find them there.

But here let me explain who I am and what brought me to these parts.
My name is Samuel Wraxall–the Reverend Samuel Wraxall, to be precise:
I was born a Cockney and educated at Rugby and Oxford. On leaving the
University I had taken orders; but, for reasons impertinent to this
narrative, was led, after five years of parochial work in Surrey, to
accept an Inspectorship of Schools. Just now I was bound for Pitt’s
Scawens, a desolate village among the Cornish clay-moors, there to
examine and report upon the Board School. Pitt’s Scawens lies some nine
miles off the railway, and six from the nearest market-town;
consequently, on hearing there was a comfortable inn near the village, I
had determined to make that my resting-place for the night and do my
business early on the morrow.

“Who lives down yonder?” I asked my driver.

“Squire Parkyn,” he answered, not troubling to follow my gaze.

“Old family?”

“May be: Belonged to these parts before I can mind.”

“What’s the place called?”

“Tremenhuel.”

I had certainly never heard the name before, nevertheless my lips were
forming the syllables almost before he spoke. As he flicked up his grey
horse and the gig began to oscillate in more business-like fashion, I
put him a fourth question–a question at once involuntary and absurd.

“Are you sure the people who live there are called Parkyn?”

He turned his head at this, and treated me quite excusably to a stare of
amazement.

“Well–considerin’ I’ve lived in these parts five-an’-forty year, man
and boy, I reckon I ought to be sure.”

The reproof was just, and I apologised. Nevertheless Parkyn was not the
name I wanted. What was the name? And why did I want it? I had not
the least idea. For the next mile I continued to hunt my brain for the
right combination of syllables. I only knew that somewhere, now at the
back of my head, now on my tongue-tip, there hung a word I desired to
utter, but could not. I was still searching for it when the gig climbed
over the summit of a gentle rise, and the “Indian Queens” hove in sight.

It is not usual for a village to lie a full mile beyond its inn: yet I
never doubted this must be the case with Pitt’s Scawens. Nor was I in
the least surprised by the appearance of this lonely tavern, with the
black peat-pool behind it and the high-road in front, along which its
end windows stare for miles, as if on the look-out for the ghosts of
departed coaches full of disembodied travellers for the Land’s End.
I knew the sign-board over the porch: I knew–though now in the twilight
it was impossible to distinguish colours–that upon either side of it
was painted an Indian Queen in a scarlet turban and blue robe, taking
two black children with scarlet parasols to see a blue palm-tree.
I recognised the hepping-stock and granite drinking-trough beside the
porch; as well as the eight front windows, four on either side of the
door, and the dummy window immediately over it. Only the landlord was
unfamiliar. He appeared as the gig drew up–a loose-fleshed, heavy man,
something over six feet in height–and welcomed me with an air of
anxious hospitality, as if I were the first guest he had entertained for
many years.

“You received my letter, then?” I asked.

“Yes, surely. The Rev. S. Wraxall, I suppose. Your bed’s aired, sir,
and a fire in the Blue Room, and the cloth laid. My wife didn’t like to
risk cooking the fowl till you were really come. ‘Railways be that
uncertain,’ she said. ‘Something may happen to the train and he’ll be
done to death and all in pieces.’”

It took me a couple of seconds to discover that these gloomy
anticipations referred not to me but to the fowl.

“But if you can wait half an hour–” he went on.

“Certainly,” said I. “In the meanwhile, if you’ll show me up to my
bedroom, I’ll have a wash and change my clothes, for I’ve been
travelling since ten this morning.”

I was standing in the passage by this time, and examined it in the dusk
while the landlord was fetching a candle. Yes, again: I had felt sure
the staircase lay to the right. I knew by heart the Ionic pattern of
its broad balusters; the tick of the tall clock, standing at the first
turn of the stairs; the vista down the glazed door opening on the
stable-yard. When the landlord returned with my portmanteau and a
candle and I followed him up-stairs, I was asking myself for the
twentieth time–’When–in what stage of my soul’s history–had I been
doing all this before? And what on earth was that tune that kept
humming in my head?’

I dismissed these speculations as I entered the bedroom and began to
fling off my dusty clothes. I had almost forgotten about them by the
time I began to wash away my travel-stains, and rinse the coal-dust out
of my hair. My spirits revived, and I began mentally to arrange my
plans for the next day. The prospect of dinner, too, after my cold
drive was wonderfully comforting. Perhaps (thought I), there is good
wine in this inn; it is just the house wherein travellers find, or boast
that they find, forgotten bins of Burgundy or Teneriffe. When my
landlord returned to conduct me to the Blue Room, I followed him down to
the first landing in the lightest of spirits.

Therefore, I was startled when, as the landlord threw open the door and
stood aside to let me pass, it came upon me again–and this time not
as a merely vague sensation, but as a sharp and sudden fear taking me
like a cold hand by the throat. I shivered as I crossed the threshold
and began to look about me. The landlord observed it, and said–

“It’s chilly weather for travelling, to be sure. Maybe you’d be better
down-stairs in the coffee-room, after all.”

I felt that this was probable enough. But it seemed a pity to have put
him to the pains of lighting this fire for nothing. So I promised him I
should be comfortable enough.

He appeared to be relieved, and asked me what I would drink with my
dinner. “There’s beer–I brew it myself; and sherry–”

I said I would try his beer.

“And a bottle of sound port to follow?”

Port upon home-brewed beer! But I had dared it often enough in my
Oxford days, and a long evening lay before me, with a snug armchair, and
a fire fit to roast a sheep. I assented.

He withdrew to fetch up the meal, and I looked about me with curiosity.
The room was a long one–perhaps fifty feet from end to end, and not
less than ten paces broad. It was wainscotted to the height of four
feet from the ground, probably with oak, but the wood had been so larded
with dark blue paint that its texture could not be discovered.
Above this wainscot the walls were covered with a fascinating paper.
The background of this was a greenish-blue, and upon it a party of
red-coated riders in three-cornered hats blew large horns while they
hunted a stag. This pattern, striking enough in itself, became
immeasurably more so when repeated a dozen times; for the stag of one
hunt chased the riders of the next, and the riders chased the hounds,
and so on in an unbroken procession right round the room. The window at
the bottom of the room stood high in the wall, with short blue curtains
and a blue-cushioned seat beneath. In the corner to the right of it
stood a tall clock, and by the clock an old spinet, decorated with two
plated cruets, a toy cottage constructed of shells and gum, and an
ormolu clock under glass–the sort of ornament that an Agricultural
Society presents to the tenant of the best-cultivated farm within thirty
miles of somewhere or other. The floor was un-carpeted save for one
small oasis opposite the fire. Here stood my table, cleanly spread,
with two plated candlesticks, each holding three candles. Along the
wainscot extended a regiment of dark, leather-cushioned chairs, so
straight in the back that they seemed to be standing at attention.
There was but one easy-chair in the room, and this was drawn close to
the fire. I turned towards it.

As I sat down I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror above the
fireplace. It was an unflattering glass, with a wave across the surface
that divided my face into two ill-fitting halves, and a film upon it,
due, I suppose, to the smoke of the wood-fire below. But the setting of
this mirror and the fireplace itself were by far the most noteworthy
objects in the whole room. I set myself idly to examine them.

It was an open hearth, and the blazing faggot lay on the stone itself.
The andirons were of indifferently polished steel, and on either side of
the fireplace two Ionic pilasters of dark oak supported a narrow
mantel-ledge. Above this rested the mirror, flanked by a couple of
naked, flat-cheeked boys, who appeared to be lowering it over the fire
by a complicated system of pulleys, festoons, and flowers.
These flowers and festoons, as well as the frame of the mirror, were of
some light wood–lime, I fancy–and reminded me of Grinling Gibbons’
work; and the glass tilted forward at a surprising angle, as if about to
tumble on the hearth-rug. The carving was exceedingly delicate.
I rose to examine it more narrowly. As I did so, my eyes fell on three
letters, cut in flowing italic capitals upon a plain boss of wood
immediately over the frame, and I spelt out the word FVI.

Fui–the word was simple enough; but what of its associations?
Why should it begin to stir up again those memories which were memories
of nothing? Fui–”I have been”; but what the dickens have I been?

The landlord came in with my dinner.

“Ah!” said he, “you’re looking at our masterpiece, I see.”

“Tell me,” I asked; “do you know why this word is written here, over the
mirror?”

“I’ve heard my wife say, sir, it was the motto of the Cardinnocks that
used to own this house. Ralph Cardinnock, father to the last squire,
built it. You’ll see his initials up there, in the top corners of the
frame–R. C.–one letter in each corner.”

As he spoke it, I knew this name–Cardinnock–for that which had been
haunting me. I seated myself at table, saying–

“They lived at Tremenhuel, I suppose. Is the family gone?–died out?”

“Why yes; and the way of it was a bit curious, too.”

“You might sit down and tell me about it,” I said, “while I begin my
dinner.”

“There’s not much to tell,” he answered, taking a chair; “and I’m not
the man to tell it properly. My wife is a better hand at it, but”–
here he looked at me doubtfully–”it always makes her cry.”

“Then I’d rather hear it from you. How did Tremenhuel come into the
hands of the Parkyns?–that’s the present owner’s name, is it not?”

The landlord nodded. “The answer to that is part of the story.
Old Parkyn, great-great-grandfather to the one that lives there now,
took Tremenhuel on lease from the last Cardinnock–Squire Philip
Cardinnock, as he was called. Squire Philip came into the property when
he was twenty-three: and before he reached twenty-seven, he was forced
to let the old place. He was wild, they say–thundering wild; a
drinking, dicing, cock-fighting, horse-racing young man; poured out his
money like water through a sieve. That was bad enough: but when it came
to carrying off a young lady and putting a sword through her father and
running the country, I put it to you it’s worse.”

“Did he disappear?”

“That’s part of the story, too. When matters got desperate and he was
forced to let Tremenhuel, he took what money he could raise and cleared
out of the neighbourhood for a time; went off to Tregarrick when the
militia was embodied, he being an officer; and there he cast his
affections upon old Sir Felix Williams’s daughter. Miss Cicely–”

I was expecting it: nevertheless I dropped my fork clumsily as I heard
the name, and for a few seconds the landlord’s voice sounded like that
of a distant river as it ran on–

“And as Sir Felix wouldn’t consent–for which nobody blamed him–
Squire Philip and Miss Cicely agreed to go off together one dark night.
But the old man found them out and stopped them in the nick of time and
got six inches of cold steel for his pains. However, he kept his girl,
and Squire Philip had to fly the country. He went off that same night,
they say: and wherever he went, he never came back.”

“What became of him?”

“Ne’er a soul knows; for ne’er a soul saw his face again. Year after
year, old Parkyn, his tenant, took the rent of Tremenhuel out of his
right pocket and paid it into his left: and in time, there being no
heir, he just took over the property and stepped into Cardinnock’s shoes
with a ‘by your leave’ to nobody, and there his grandson is to this
day.”

“What became of the young lady–of Miss Cicely Williams?” I asked.

“Died an old maid. There was something curious between her and her only
brother who had helped to stop the runaway match. Nobody knows what it
was: but when Sir Felix died–as he did about ten years after–
she packed up and went somewhere to the North of England and settled.
They say she and her brother never spoke: which was carrying her anger
at his interference rather far, ’specially as she remained good friends
with her father.”

He broke off here to fetch up the second course. We talked no more, for
I was pondering his tale and disinclined to be diverted to other topics.
Nor can I tell whether the rest of the meal was good or ill. I suppose
I ate: but it was only when the landlord swept the cloth, and produced a
bottle of port, with a plate of biscuits and another of dried raisins,
that I woke out of my musing. While I drew the arm-chair nearer the
fire, he pushed forward the table with the wine to my elbow.
After this, he poured me out a glass and fell to dusting a high-backed
chair with vigour, as though he had caught it standing at ease and were
giving it a round dozen for insubordination in the ranks. “Was there
anything more?” “Nothing, thank you.” He withdrew.

I drank a couple of glasses and began meditatively to light my pipe.
I was trying to piece together these words “Philip Cardinnock–
Cicely Williams–fui,” and to fit them into the tune that kept running
in my head.

My pipe went out. I pulled out my pouch and was filling it afresh when
a puff of wind came down the chimney and blew a cloud of blue smoke out
into the room.

The smoke curled up and spread itself over the face of the mirror
confronting me. I followed it lazily with my eyes. Then suddenly I
bent forward, staring up. Something very curious was happening to the
glass.

II. WHAT I SAW IN THE MIRROR.

The smoke that had dimmed the mirror’s face for a moment was rolling off
its surface and upwards to the ceiling. But some of it still lingered
in filmy, slowly revolving eddies. The glass itself, too, was stirring
beneath this film and running across its breadth in horizontal waves
which broke themselves silently, one after another, against the dark
frame, while the circles of smoke kept widening, as the ripples widen
when a stone is tossed into still water.

I rubbed my eyes. The motion on the mirror’s surface was quickening
perceptibly, while the glass itself was steadily becoming more opaque,
the film deepening to a milky colour and lying over the surface in heavy
folds. I was about to start up and touch the glass with my hand, when
beneath this milky colour and from the heart of the whirling film, there
began to gleam an underlying brilliance after the fashion of the light
in an opal, but with this difference, that the light here was blue–
a steel blue so vivid that the pain of it forced me to shut my eyes.
When I opened them again, this light had increased in intensity.
The disturbance in the glass began to abate; the eddies revolved more
slowly; the smoke-wreaths faded: and as they died wholly out, the blue
light went out on a sudden and the mirror looked down upon me as before.

That is to say, I thought so for a moment. But the next, I found that
though its face reflected the room in which I sat, there was one
omission.

I was that omission. My arm-chair was there, but no one sat in it.

I was surprised; but, as well as I can recollect, not in the least
frightened. I continued, at any rate, to gaze steadily into the glass,
and now took note of two particulars that had escaped me. The table I
saw was laid for two. Forks, knives and glasses gleamed at either end,
and a couple of decanters caught the sparkle of the candles in the
centre. This was my first observation. The second was that the colours
of the hearth-rug had gained in freshness, and that a dark spot just
beyond it–a spot which in my first exploration I had half-amusedly
taken for a blood-stain–was not reflected in the glass.

As I leant back and gazed, with my hands in my lap, I remember there was
some difficulty in determining whether the tune by which I was still
haunted ran in my head or was tinkling from within the old spinet by the
window. But after a while the music, whencesoever it came, faded away
and ceased. A dead silence held everything for about thirty seconds.

And then, still looking in the mirror, I saw the door behind me open
slowly.

The next moment, two persons noiselessly entered the room–a young man
and a girl. They wore the dress of the early Georgian days, as well as
I could see; for the girl was wrapped in a cloak with a hood that almost
concealed her face, while the man wore a heavy riding-coat. He was
booted and spurred, and the backs of his top-boots were splashed with
mud. I say the backs of his boots, for he stood with his back to me
while he held open the door for the girl to pass, and at first I could
not see his face.

The lady advanced into the light of the candles and threw back her hood.
Her eyes were dark and frightened: her cheeks damp with rain and
slightly reddened by the wind. A curl of brown hair had broken loose
from its knot and hung, heavy with wet, across her brow. It was a
beautiful face; and I recognised its owner. She was Cicely Williams.

With that, I knew well enough what I was to see next. I knew it even
while the man at the door was turning, and I dug the nails of my right
hand into the palm of my left, to repress the fear that swelled up as a
wave as I looked straight into his face and saw–my own self.

But I had expected it, as I say: and when the wave of fear had passed
over me and gone, I could observe these two figures steadfastly enough.
The girl dropped into a chair beside the table, and stretching her arms
along the white cloth, bowed her head over them and wept. I saw her
shoulders heave and her twined fingers work as she struggled with her
grief. The young Squire advanced and, with a hand on her shoulder,
endeavoured by many endearments to comfort her. His lips moved
vehemently, and gradually her shoulders ceased to rise and fall.
By-and-by she raised her head and looked up into his face with wet,
gleaming eyes. It was very pitiful to see. The young man took her face
between his hands, kissed it, and pouring out a glass of wine, held it
to her lips. She put it aside with her hand and glanced up towards the
tall clock in the corner. My eyes, following hers, saw that the hands
pointed to a quarter to twelve.

The young Squire set down the glass hastily, stepped to the window and,
drawing aside the blue curtain, gazed out upon the night. Twice he
looked back at Cicely, over his shoulder, and after a minute returned to
the table. He drained the glass which the girl had declined, poured out
another, still keeping his eyes on her, and began to walk impatiently up
and down the room. And all the time Cicely’s soft eyes never ceased to
follow him. Clearly there was need for hurry, for they had not laid
aside their travelling-cloaks, and once or twice the young man paused in
his walk to listen. At length he pulled out his watch, glanced from it
to the clock in the corner, put it away with a frown and, striding up to
the hearth, flung himself down in the arm-chair–the very arm-chair in
which I was seated.

As he sat there, tapping the hearth-rug with the toe of his thick
riding-boot and moving his lips now and then in answer to some
question from the young girl, I had time to examine his every feature.
Line by line they reproduced my own–nay, looking straight into his eyes
I could see through them into the soul of him and recognised that soul
for my own. Of all the passions there I knew that myself contained the
germs. Vices repressed in youth, tendencies to sin starved in my own
nature by lack of opportunity–these flourished in a rank growth.
I saw virtues, too, that I had once possessed but had lost by degrees in
my respectable journey through life–courage, generosity, tenderness of
heart. I was discovering these with envy, one by one, when he raised
his head higher and listened for a moment, with a hand on either arm of
the chair.

The next instant he sprang up and faced the door. Glancing at Cicely, I
saw her cowering down in her chair.

The young Squire had hardly gained his feet when the door flew open and
the figures of two men appeared on the threshold–Sir Felix Williams and
his only son, the father and brother of Cicely.

There, in the doorway, the intruders halted; but for an instant only.
Almost before the Squire could draw, his sweetheart’s brother had sprung
forward. Like two serpents their rapiers engaged in the candle-light.
The soundless blades crossed and glittered. Then one of them flickered
in a narrow circle, and the brother’s rapier went spinning from his hand
across the room.

Young Cardinnock lowered his point at once, and his adversary stepped
back a couple of paces. While a man might count twenty the pair looked
each other in the face, and then the old man, Sir Felix, stepped slowly
forward.

But before he could thrust–for the young Squire still kept his point
lowered–Cicely sprang forward and threw herself across her lover’s
breast. There, for all the gentle efforts his left hand made to
disengage her, she clung. She had made her choice. There was no sign
of faltering in her soft eyes, and her father had perforce to hold his
hand.

The old man began to speak. I saw his face distorted with passion and
his lips working. I saw the deep red gather on Cicely’s cheeks and the
anger in her lover’s eyes. There was a pause as Sir Felix ceased to
speak, and then the young Squire replied. But his sentence stopped
midway: for once more the old man rushed upon him.

This time young Cardinnock’s rapier was raised. Girdling Cicely with
his left arm he parried her father’s lunge and smote his blade aside.
But such was the old man’s passion that he followed the lunge with all
his body, and before his opponent could prevent it, was wounded high in
the chest, beneath the collar-bone.

He reeled back and fell against the table. Cicely ran forward and
caught his hand; but he pushed her away savagely and, with another
clutch at the table’s edge, dropped upon the hearth-rug. The young man,
meanwhile, white and aghast, rushed to the table, filled a glass with
wine, and held it to the lips of the wounded man. So the two lovers
knelt.

It was at this point that I who sat and witnessed the tragedy was
assailed by a horror entirely new. Hitherto I had, indeed, seen myself
in Squire Philip Cardinnock; but now I began also to possess his soul
and feel with his feelings, while at the same time I continued to sit
before the glass, a helpless onlooker. I was two men at once; the man
who knelt all unaware of what was coming and the man who waited in the
arm-chair, incapable of word or movement, yet gifted with a torturing
prescience. And as I sat this was what I saw:–

The brother, as I knelt there oblivious of all but the wounded man,
stepped across the room to the corner where his rapier lay, picked it up
softly and as softly stole up behind me. I tried to shout, to warn
myself; but my tongue was tied. The brother’s arm was lifted. The
candlelight ran along the blade. Still the kneeling figure never
turned.

And as my heart stiffened and awaited it, there came a flash of pain–
one red-hot stroke of anguish.

III. WHAT I SAW IN THE TARN.

As the steel entered my back, cutting all the cords that bound me to
life, I suffered anguish too exquisite for words to reach, too deep for
memory to dive after. My eyes closed and teeth shut on the taste of
death; and as they shut a merciful oblivion wrapped me round.

When I awoke, the room was dark, and I was standing on my feet. A cold
wind was blowing on my face, as from an open door. I staggered to meet
this wind and found myself groping along a passage and down a staircase
filled with Egyptian darkness. Then the wind increased suddenly and
shook the black curtain around my senses. A murky light broke in on me.
I had a body. That I felt; but where it was I knew not. And so I felt
my way forward in the direction where the twilight showed least dimly.

Slowly the curtain shook and its folds dissolved as I moved against the
wind. The clouds lifted; and by degrees I grew aware that I was
standing on the barren moor. Night was stretched around to the horizon,
where straight ahead a grey bar shone across the gloom. I pressed on
towards it. The heath was uneven under my feet, and now and then I
stumbled heavily; but still I held on. For it seemed that I must get to
this grey bar or die a second time. All my muscles, all my will, were
strained upon this purpose.

Drawing nearer, I observed that a wave-like motion kept passing over
this brighter space, as it had passed over the mirror. The glimmer
would be obscured for a moment, and then re-appear. At length a gentle
acclivity of the moor hid it for a while. My legs positively raced up
this slope, and upon the summit I hardly dared to look for a moment,
knowing that if the light were an illusion all my hope must die with it.

But it was no illusion. There was the light, and there, before my feet,
lay a sable sheet of water, over the surface of which the light was
playing. There was no moon, no star in heaven; yet over this desolate
tarn hovered a pale radiance that ceased again where the edge of its
waves lapped the further bank of peat. Their monotonous wash hardly
broke the stillness of the place.

The formless longing was now pulling at me with an attraction I could
not deny, though within me there rose and fought against it a horror
only less strong. Here, as in the Blue Room, two souls were struggling
for me. It was the soul of Philip Cardinnock that drew me towards the
tarn and the soul of Samuel Wraxall that resisted. Only, what was the
thing towards which I was being pulled?

I must have stood at least a minute on the brink before I descried a
black object floating at the far end of the tarn. What this object was
I could not make out; but I knew it on the instant to be that for which
I longed, and all my will grew suddenly intent on drawing it nearer.
Even as my volition centred upon it, the black spot began to move slowly
out into the pale radiance towards me. Silently, surely, as though my
wish drew it by a rope, it floated nearer and nearer over the bosom of
the tarn; and while it was still some twenty yards from me I saw it to
be a long black box, shaped somewhat like a coffin.

There was no doubt about it. I could hear the water now sucking at its
dark sides. I stepped down the bank, and waded up to my knees in the
icy water to meet it. It was a plain box, with no writing upon the lid,
nor any speck of metal to relieve the dead black: and it moved with the
same even speed straight up to where I stood.

As it came, I laid my hand upon it and touched wood. But with the touch
came a further sensation that made me fling both arms around the box and
begin frantically to haul it towards the shore.

It was a feeling of suffocation; of a weight that pressed in upon my
ribs and choked the lungs’ action. I felt that I must open that box or
die horribly; that until I had it upon the bank and had forced the lid
up I should know no pause from the labour and torture of dying.

This put a wild strength into me. As the box grated upon the few
pebbles by the shore, I bent over it, caught it once more by the sides,
and with infinite effort dragged it up out of the water. It was heavy,
and the weight upon my chest was heavier yet: but straining, panting,
gasping, I hauled it up the bank, dropped it on the turf, and knelt over
it, tugging furiously at the lid.

I was frenzied–no less. My nails were torn until the blood gushed.
Lights danced before me; bells rang in my ears; the pressure on my lungs
grew more intolerable with each moment; but still I fought with that
lid. Seven devils were within me and helped me; and all the while I
knew that I was dying, that unless the box were opened in a moment or
two it would be too late.

The sweat ran off my eyebrows and dripped on the box. My breath came
and went in sobs. I could not die. I could not, must not die. And so
I tugged and strained and tugged again.

Then, as I felt the black anguish of the Blue Room descending a second
time upon me, I seemed to put all my strength into my hands. From the
lid or from my own throat–I could not distinguish–there came a creak
and a long groan. I tore back the board and fell on the heath with one
shuddering breath of relief.

And drawing it, I raised my head and looked over the coffin’s edge.
Still drawing it, I tumbled back.

White, cold, with the last struggle fixed on its features and open eyes,
it was my own dead face that stared up at me!

IV. WHAT I HAVE SINCE LEARNT.

They found me, next morning, lying on the brink of the tarn, and carried
me back to the inn. There I lay for weeks in a brain fever and talked–
as they assure me–the wildest nonsense. The landlord had first guessed
that something was amiss on finding the front door open when he came
down at five o’clock. I must have turned to the left on leaving the
house, travelled up the road for a hundred yards, and then struck almost
at right angles across the moor. One of my shoes was found a furlong
from the highway, and this had guided them. Of course they found no
coffin beside me, and I was prudent enough to hold my tongue when I
became convalescent. But the effect of that night was to shatter my
health for a year and more, and force me to throw up my post of School
Inspector. To this day I have never examined the school at Pitt’s
Scawens. But somebody else has; and last winter I received a letter,
which I will give in full:–

21, Chesterham Road, KENSINGTON, W.
December 3rd, 1891.

Dear Wraxall,–

It is a long time since we have corresponded, but I have just
returned from Cornwall, and while visiting Pitt’s Scawens
professionally, was reminded of you. I put up at the inn where
you had your long illness. The people there were delighted to
find that I knew you, and desired me to send “their duty” when
next I wrote. By the way, I suppose you were introduced to their
state apartment–the Blue Room–and its wonderful chimney carving.
I made a bid to the landlord for it, panels, mirror, and all, but
he referred me to Squire Parkyn, the landlord. I think I may get
it, as the Squire loves hard coin. When I have it up over my
mantel-piece here you must run over and give me your opinion on it.
By the way, clay has been discovered on the Tremenhuel Estate, just
at the back of the “Indian Queens”: at least, I hear that Squire
Parkyn is running a Company, and is sanguine. You remember the
tarn behind the inn? They made an odd discovery there when
draining it for the new works. In the mud at the bottom was
imbedded the perfect skeleton of a man. The bones were quite clean
and white. Close beside the body they afterwards turned up a
silver snuff-box, with the word “Fui” on the lid. “Fui” was the
motto of the Cardinnocks, who held Tremenhuel before it passed to
the Parkyns. There seems to be no doubt that these are the bones
of the last Squire, who disappeared mysteriously more than a
hundred years ago, in consequence of a love affair, I’m told.
It looks like foul play; but, if so, the account has long since
passed out of the hands of man.

Yours ever, David E. Mainwaring.

P.S.–I reopen this to say that Squire Parkyn has accepted my offer
for the chimney-piece. Let me hear soon that you’ll come and look
at it and give me your opinion.

A REPORTED TALE OF TWO FRIGATES AND TWO LUGGERS

I dare say you’ve never heard tell of my wife’s grandfather, Captain
John Tackabird–or Cap’n Jacka, as he was always called. He was a
remarkable man altogether, and he died of a seizure in the Waterloo
year; an earnest Methody all his days, and towards the end a highly
respected class-leader. To tell you the truth, he wasn’t much to look
at, being bald as a coot and blind of one eye, besides other defects.
His mother let him run too soon, and that made his legs bandy. And
then a bee stung him, and all his hair came off. And his eye he lost
in a little job with the preventive men; but his lid drooped so, you’d
hardly know ’twas missing. He’d a way, too, of talking to himself as
he went along, so that folks reckoned him silly. It was queer how that
maggot stuck in their heads; for in handling a privateer or a Guernsey
cargo–sink the or run it straight–there wasn’t his master in
Polperro. The very children could tell ‘ee.

I’m telling of the year ‘five, when the most of the business in
Polperro–free-trade and privateering–was managed (as the world
knows) by Mr. Zephaniah Job. This Job he came from St. Ann’s–by
reason of his having shied some person’s child out of a window in
a fit of temper–and opened school at Polperro, where he taught
rule-of-three and mensuration; also navigation, though he only
knew about it on paper. By-and-by he became accountant to all the
free-trade companies and agent for the Guernsey merchants; and at last
blossomed out and opened a bank with 1l. and 2l. notes, and bigger
ones which he drew on Christopher Smith, Esquire, Alderman of London.

Well, this Job was agent for a company of adventurers called the
“Pride o’ the West,” and had ordered a new lugger to be built for them
down at Mevagissey. She was called the Unity, 160 tons (that would
be about fifty as they measure now), mounting sixteen carriage guns
and carrying sixty men, nice and comfortable. She was lying on the
ways, ready to launch, and Mr. Job proposed to Cap’n Jacka to sail
over to Mevagissey and have a look at her.

Cap’n Jacka was pleased as Punch, of course. He’d quite made up his
mind he was to command her, seeing that, first and last, in the
old Pride lugger, he had cleared over 40 per cent, for this very
Company. So they sailed over and took thorough stock of the new craft,
and Jacka praised this and suggested that, and carried on quite as if
he’d got captain’s orders inside his hat–which was where he usually
carried them. Mr. Job looked sidelong down his nose–he was a leggy
old galliganter, with stiverish grey hair and a jawbone long enough to
make Cap’n Jacka a new pair of shins–and said he, “What do’ee think
of her?”

“Well,” said Jacka, “any fool can see she’ll run, and any fool can see
she’ll reach. I reckon she’ll come about as fast as th’ old Pride,
and if she don’t sit nigher the wind than the new revenue cutter it’ll
be your sailmaker’s fault.”

“That’s a first-class report,” said Mr. Job. “I was thinking of
offering you the post of mate in her.”

Cap’n Jacka felt poorly all of a sudden. “Aw,” he asked, “who’s to be
skipper, then?”

“The Company was thinkin’ of young Dick Hewitt.”

“Aw,” said Cap’n Jacka again, and shut his mouth tight. Young Dick
Hewitt’s father had shares in the Company and money to buy votes
beside.

“What do’ee think?” asked Mr. Job, still slanting his eye down his
nose.

“I’ll go home an’ take my wife’s opinion,” said Cap’n Jacka.

So when he got home he told it all to his funny little wife that he
doted on like the apple of his one eye. She was a small, round body,
with beady eyes that made her look like a doll on a pen-wiper; and she
said, of course, that the Company was a parcel of rogues and fools
together.

“Young Dick Hewitt is every bit so good a seaman as I be,” said Cap’n
Jacka.

“He’s a boaster.”

“So he is, but he’s a smart seaman for all.”

“I declare if the world was to come to an end you’d sit quiet an’
never say a word.”

“I dessay I should. I’d leave you to speak up for me.”

“Baint’ee goin’ to say nothin‘, then?”

“Iss; I’m goin’ to lay it before the Lord.”

So down ‘pon their knees these old souls went upon the limeash, and
asked for guidance, and Cap’n Jacka, after a while, stretched out
his hand to the shelf for Wesley’s Hymns. They always pitched a hymn
together before going to bed. When he’d got the book in his hand he
saw that ’twasn’t Wesley at all, but another that he never studied
from the day his wife gave it to him, because it was called the “Only
Hymn Book,”[A] and he said the name was as good as a lie. Hows’ever,
he opened it now, and came slap on the hymn:–

[Footnote A: Probably "Olney."]

  Tho' troubles assail and dangers affright,
  If foes all should fail and foes all unite,
  Yet one thing assures us, whatever betide,
  I trust in all dangers the Lord will provide.

They sang it there and then to the tune of “O all that pass by,” and
the very next morning Cap’n Jacka walked down and told Mr. Job he was
ready to go for mate under young Dick Hewitt.

More than once, the next week or two, he came near to repenting; for
Cap’n Dick was very loud about his promotion, especially at the Three
Pilchards; and when the Unity came round and was fitting–very slow,
too, by reason of delay with her letters of marque–he ordered Cap’n
Jacka back and forth like a stevedore’s dog. “There was to be no ‘nigh
enough’ on this lugger”–that was the sort of talk; and oil and
rotten-stone for the very gun-swivels. But Jacka knew the fellow, and
even admired the great figure and its loud ways. “He’s a cap’n, anyhow,”
he told his wife; “‘twon’t be ‘all fellows to football’ while he’s in
command. And I’ve seen him handle the Good Intent, under Hockin.”

Mrs. Tackabird said nothing. She was busy making sausages and setting
down a stug of butter for her man’s use on the voyage. But he knew she
would be a disappointed woman if he didn’t contrive in some honest way
to turn the tables on the Company and their new pet. For days together
he went about whistling “Tho’ troubles assail … “; and the very
night before sailing, as they sat quiet, one each side of the hearth,
he made the old woman jump by saying all of a sudden, “Coals o’ fire!”

“What d’ee mean by that?” she asked.

“Nothin’. I was thinkin’ to myself, and out it popped.”

“Well, ’tis like a Providence! For, till you said that, I’d clean
forgot the sifter for your cuddy fire. Mustn’t waste cinders now that
you’re only a mate.”

Being a woman, she couldn’t forego that little dig; but she got up
there and then and gave the old boy a kiss.

She wouldn’t walk down to the quay, though, next day, to see him off,
being certain (she said) to lose her temper at the sight of Cap’n
Dick carrying on as big as bull’s beef, not to mention the sneering
shareholders and their wives. So Cap’n Jacka took his congees at his
own door, and turned, half-way down the street, and waved a good-bye
with the cinder-sifter. She used to say afterwards that this was
Providence, too.

The Unity ran straight across until she made Ushant Light; and after
cruising about for a couple of days, in moderate weather (it being the
first week in April) Cap’n Dick laid her head east and began to nose
up Channel, keeping an easy little distance off the French coast. You
see, the Channel was full of our ships and neutrals in those days,
which made fat work for the French privateers; but the Frenchies’ own
vessels kept close over on their coast; and even so, the best our boys
could expect, nine times out of ten when they’d crossed over, was to
run against a chasse-maree dodging between Cherbourg and St. Malo or
Morlaix, with naval stores or munitions of war.

However, Cap’n Dick had very good luck. One morning, about three
leagues N.W. of Roscoff, what should he see but a French privateering
craft of about fifty tons (new measurement) with an English trader in
tow–a London brig, with a cargo of all sorts, that had fallen behind
her convoy and been snapped up in mid-channel. Cap’n Dick had the
weather-gauge, as well as the legs of the French chasse-maree. She
was about a league to leeward when the morning lifted and he first
spied her. By seven o’clock he was close, and by eight had made
himself master of her and the prize, with the loss of two men only and
four wounded, the Frenchman being short-handed, by reason of the crew
he’d put into the brig to work her into Morlaix.

This was first-rate business. To begin with, the brig (she was called
the Martha Edwards, of London) would yield a tidy little sum for
salvage. The wind being fair for Plymouth, Cap’n Dick sent her into
that port–her own captain and crew working her, of course, and thirty
Frenchmen on board in irons. And at Plymouth she arrived without any
mishap.

Then came the chasse-maree. She was called the Bean Pheasant,[A]
an old craft and powerful leaky; but she mounted sixteen guns, the
same as the Unity, and ought to have made a better run from her;
but first, she hadn’t been able to make her mind to desert her prize
pretty well within sight of port; and in the second place her men had
a fair job to keep her pumps going. Cap’n Dick considered, and then
turned to old Jacka.

[Footnote A: Probably Bienfaisant.]

“I’m thinking,” said he, “I’ll have to put you aboard with a prize
crew to work her back to Polperro.”

“The Lord will provide,” said Jacka, though he had looked to see a
little more of the fun.

So aboard he went with all his belongings, not forgetting his wife’s
sausages and the stug of butter and the cinder-sifter. Towards the end
of the action about fifteen of the Johnnies had got out the brig’s
large boat and pulled her ashore, where, no doubt, they reached, safe
and sound. So Jacka hadn’t more than a dozen prisoners to look after,
and prepared for a comfortable little homeward trip.

“I’ll just cruise between this and Jersey,” said Cap’n Dick; “and at
the week-end, if there’s nothing doing, we’ll put back for home and
re-ship you.”

So they parted; and by half-past ten Cap’n Jacka had laid the Bean
Pheasant’s head north-and-by-west, and was reaching along nicely for
home with a stiff breeze and nothing to do but keep the pumps going
and attend to his eating and drinking between whiles.

The prize made a good deal of water, but was a weatherly craft for all
that, and on this point of sailing shipped nothing but what she took
in through her seams; the worst of the mischief being forward, where
her stem had worked a bit loose with age and started the bends. Cap’n
Jacka, however, thought less of the sea–that was working up into a
nasty lop–than of the weather, which turned thick and hazy as the
wind veered a little to west of south. But even this didn’t trouble
him much. He had sausages for breakfast and sausages for dinner, and,
as evening drew on, and he knew he was well on the right side of the
Channel, he knocked out his pipe and began to think of sausages for
tea.

Just then one of the hands forward dropped pumping, and sang out that
there was a big sail on the starboard bow. “I b’lieve ’tis a frigate,
sir,” he said, spying between his hands.

So it was. She had sprung on them out of the thick weather. But now
Cap’n Jacka could see the white line on her and the ports quite plain,
and not two miles away.

“What nation?” he bawled.

“I can’t make out as she carries any flag. Losh me! if there bain’t
another!”

Sure as I’m telling you, another frigate there was, likewise standing
down towards them under easy canvas, on the same starboard tack a mile
astern, but well to windward of the first.

“Whatever they be,” said Cap’n Jacka, “they’re bound to head us off,
and they’re bound to hail us. I go get my tea,” he said; “for, if
they’re Frenchmen, ’tis my last meal for months to come.”

So he fetched out his frying-pan and plenty sausages and fried away
for dear life–with butter too, which was ruinous waste. He shared
round the sausages, two to each man, and kept the Bean Pheasant to
her course until the leading frigate fired a shot across her bows,
and ran up the red-white-and-blue; and then, knowing the worst, he
rounded-to as meek as a lamb.

The long and short of it was that, inside the hour the dozen Frenchmen
were free, and Cap’n Jacka and his men in their place, ironed hand
and foot; and the Bean Pheasant working back to France again with a
young gentleman of the French navy aboard in command of her.

But ’tis better be lucky born, they say, than a rich man’s son. By
this time it was blowing pretty well half a gale from sou’-sou’-west,
and before midnight a proper gale. The Bean Pheasant being kept head
to sea, took it smack-and-smack on the breast-bone, which was her
leakiest spot; and soon, being down by the head, made shocking weather
of it. ‘Twas next door to impossible to work the pump forward. Towards
one in the morning old Jacka was rolling about up to his waist as he
sat, and trying to comfort himself by singing “Tho’ troubles assail,”
when the young French gentleman came running with one of his Johnnies
and knocked the irons off the English boys, and told them to be
brisk and help work the pumps, or the lugger–that was already hove
to–would go down under them.

“But where be you going?” he sings out–or French to that effect. For
Jacka was moving aft towards the cuddy there.

Jacka fetched up his best smuggling French, and answered: “This here
lugger is going down. Any fool can see that, as you’re handling her.
And I’m going down on a full stomach.”

With that he reached an arm into the cuddy, where he’d stacked his
provisions that evening on top of the frying-pan. But the labouring of
the ship had knocked everything there of a heap, and instead of the
frying-pan he caught hold of his wife’s cinder-sifter.

At that moment the Frenchman ran up behind and caught him a kick.
“Come out o’ that, you old villain, and fall in at the after pump!”
said he.

“Aw, very well,” said Jack, turning at once–for the cinder-sifter had
given him a bright idea; and he went right aft to his comrades. By
this time the Frenchmen were busy getting the first gun overboard.

They were so long that Jacka’s boys had the after-pump pretty well to
themselves, and between spells one or two ran and fetched buckets,
making out ’twas for extra baling; and all seemed to be working like
niggers. But by-and-by they called out all together with one woeful
voice, “The pump is chucked! The pump is chucked!”

At this all the Frenchmen came running, the young officer leading, and
crying to know what was the matter.

“A heap of cinders got awash, sir,” says Jacka. “The pump’s clogged
wi’ em, and won’t work.”

“Then we’re lost men!” says the officer; and he caught hold by the
foremast, and leaned his face against it like a child.

This was Jacka’s chance. “‘Lost,’ is it? Iss, I reckon you be
lost!–and inside o’ ten minutes, unless you hearken to rayson. Here
you be, not twenty mile from the English coast, as I make it, and with
a fair wind. Here you be, three times that distance and more from any
port o’ your own, the wind dead on her nose, and you ram-stamming the
weak spot of her at a sea that’s knocking the bows to Jericho. Now,
Mossoo, you put her about, and run for Plymouth. She may do it. Pitch
over a couple of guns forr’ad, and quit messing with a ship you don’t
understand, an’ I’ll warn she will do it.”

The young Frenchy was plucky as ginger. “What! Take her into Plymouth,
and be made prisoner. I’ll sink first!” says he.

But you see, his crew weren’t navy men to listen to him; and they had
wives and families, and knew that Cap’n Jacka’s was their only chance.
In five minutes, for all the officer’s stamping and morblewing they
had the Bean Pheasant about and were running for the English coast.

Now I must go back and tell you what was happening to the Unity in
all this while. About four in the afternoon Cap’n Dick, not liking the
look of the weather at all, and knowing that, so long as it lasted, he
might whistle for prizes, changed his mind and determined to run back
to Polperro, so as to re-ship Cap’n Jacka and the prize crew almost
as soon as they arrived. By five o’clock he was well on his way, the
Unity skipping along quite as if she enjoyed it; and ran before the
gale all that night.

Towards three in the morning the wind moderated, and by half-past four
the gale had blown itself out. Just about then the look-out came to
Cap’n Dick, who had turned in for a spell, and reported two ships’
lights, one on each side of them. The chances against their being
Frenchmen, out here in this part of the Channel, were about five to
two; so Cap’n Dick cracked on; and at daybreak–about a quarter after
five–found himself right slap between the very two frigates that had
called Jacka to halt the evening before.

One was fetching along on the port tack, and the other on the weather
side of him, just making ready to put about. They both ran up the
white ensign at sight of him; but this meant nothing. And in a few
minutes the frigate to starboard fired a shot across his bows and
hoisted her French flag.

Cap’n Dick feigned to take the hint. He shortened sail and rounded at
a nice distance under the lee of the enemy–both frigates now lying-to
quite contentedly with their sails aback, and lowering their boats.
But the first boat had hardly dropped a foot from the davits when
he sung out, “Wurroo, lads!” and up again went the Unity’s great
lug-sail in a jiffy. The Frenchmen, like their sails, were all aback;
and before they could fire a gun the Unity was pinching up to
windward of them, with Cap’n Dick at the helm, and all the rest of the
crew flat on their stomachs. Off she went under a rattling shower from
the enemy’s bow-chasers and musketry, and was out of range without
a man hurt, and with no more damage than a hole or two in the
mizzen-lug. The Frenchmen were a good ten minutes trimming sails and
bracing their yards for the chase; and by that time Cap’n Dick had
slanted up well on their weather bow. Before breakfast-time he was
shaking his sides at the sight of seven hundred-odd Johnnies vainly
spreading and trimming more canvas to catch up their lee-way (for at
first the lazy dogs had barely unreefed courses after the gale, and
still had their topgallant masts housed). Likely enough they had work
on hand more important than chasing a small lugger all day; for at
seven o’clock they gave up and stood away to the south-east, and left
the Unity free to head back homeward on her old course.

‘Twas a surprising feat, to slip out of grasp in this way, and past
two broadsides, any gun of which could have sent him to the bottom;
and Cap’n Dick wasn’t one to miss boasting over it. Even during the
chase he couldn’t help carrying on in his usual loud and cheeky way,
waving good-bye to the Mossoos, offering them a tow-rope, and the
like; but now the deck wasn’t big enough to hold his swagger, and in
their joy of escaping a French prison, the men encouraged him, so that
to hear them talk you’d have thought he was Admiral Nelson and Sir
Sidney Smith rolled into one.

By nine o’clock they made out the Eddystone on their starboard bow;
and a little after—the morning being bright and clear, with a nice
steady breeze–they saw a sail right ahead of them, making in for
Plymouth Sound. And who should it be but the old Bean Pheasant, deep
as a log! Cap’n Dick cracked along after her, and a picture she was as
he drew up close! Six of her guns had gone; her men were baling in two
gangs, and still she was down a bit by the head, and her stern yawing
like a terrier’s tail when his head’s in a rabbit-hole. And there at
the tiller stood Cap’n Jacka, his bald head shining like a statue of
fun, and his one eye twinkling with blessed satisfaction as he cocked
it every now and then for a glance over his right shoulder.

“Hullo! What’s amiss?” sang out Cap’n Dick, as the Unity fetched
within hail.

“Aw, nothin’, nothin’. ‘Tho’ troubles assail an’ dangers’–Stiddy
there, you old angletwitch!–She’s a bit too fond o’ smelling the
wind, that’s all.”

As a matter of fact she’d taken more water than Jacka cared to think
about, now that the danger was over.

“But what brings ‘ee here? An’ what cheer wi’ you?” he asked.

This was Cap’n Dick’s chance. “I’ve had a run between two French
frigates,” he boasted, “in broad day, an’ given the slip to both!”

“Dear, now!” said Cap’n Jacka. “So have I–in broad day, too. They
must ha’ been the very same. What did ‘ee take out of ‘em?”

“Take! They were two war frigates, I tell ‘ee!”

“Iss, iss; don’t lose your temper. All I managed to take was this
young French orcifer here; but I thought, maybe, that you–having a
handier craft–”

Jacka chuckled a bit; but he wasn’t one to keep a joke going for
spite.

“Look-y-here, Cap’n,” he said; “I’ll hear your tale when we get into
dock, and you shall hear mine. What I want ‘ee to do just now is to
take this here lugger again and sail along in to Plymouth with her as
your prize. I wants, if possible, to spare the feelin’s of this young
gentleman, an’ make it look that he was brought in by force. For so he
was, though not in the common way. An’ I likes the fellow, too, though
he do kick terrible hard.”

       *       *       *       *       *

They do say that two days later, when Cap’n Jacka walked up to his own
door, he carried the cinder-sifter under his arm; and that, before
ever he kissed his wife, he stepped fore and hitched it on a nail
right in the middle of the wall over the chimney-piece, between John
Wesley and the weather-glass.

The Story is Told by Dom Bartholomew Perestrello, Governor of the
Island of Porto Santo.

It was on the fifteenth day of August, 1428, and about six o’clock in
the morning, that while taking the air on the seaward side of my house
at Porto Santo, as my custom was after breaking fast, I caught sight
of a pinnace about two leagues distant, and making for the island.

I dare say it is commonly known how I came to the governance of Porto
Santo, to hold it and pass it on to my son Bartholomew; how I sailed
to it in the year 1420 in company with the two honourable captains
John Gonsalvez Zarco and Tristram Vaz; and what the compact was which
we made between us, whereby on reaching Porto Santo these two left me
behind and passed on to discover the greater island of Madeira. And
many can tell with greater or less certainty of our old pilot,
the Spaniard Morales, and how he learned of such an island in his
captivity on the Barbary coast. Of all this you shall hear, and
perhaps more accurately, when I come to my meeting with the
Englishman. But I shall tell first of the island itself, and what were
my hopes of it on the morning when I sighted his pinnace.

In the first warmth of discovering them we never doubted that
these were the Purple Islands of King Juba, the very Garden of the
Hesperides, found anew by us after so many hundreds of years; or that
we had aught to do but sit still in our governments and grow rich
while we feasted. But that was in the year 1420, and the eight years
between had made us more than eight years sadder. In the other island
the great yield of timber had quickly come to an end: for Count Zarco,
returning thither with wife and children in the month of May, 1421,
and purposing to build a city, had set fire to the woods behind the
fennel-fields on the south coast, with intent to clear a way up to the
hills in the centre: and this fire quickly took such hold on the mass
of forest that not ten times the inhabitants could have mastered it.
And so the whole island burned for seven years, at times with a heat
which drove the settlers to their boats. For seven years as surely as
night fell could we in Porto Santo count on the glare of it across the
sea to the south-west, and for seven years the caravels of our prince
and master, Dom Henry, sighted the flame of it on their way southward
to Cape Bojador.

In all this while Count Zarco never lost heart; but, when the timber
began to fail, planted his sugar-canes on the scarcely cooled ashes,
and his young plants of the Malmsey vine–the one sent from Sicily,
the other from Candia, and both by the care of Dom Henry. While he
lives it will never be possible to defeat my friend and old comrade:
and he and I have both lived to see his island made threefold richer
by that visitation which in all men’s belief had clean destroyed it.

This planting of vines and sugar-canes began in 1425, the same year
in which the Infante gave me colonists for Porto Santo. But if I had
little of Count Zarco’s merit, it is certain I had none of his luck:
for on my small island nothing would thrive but dragon-trees; and we
had cut these in our haste before learning how to propagate them, so
that we had at the same moment overfilled the market with their gum,
or “dragon’s blood,” and left but a few for a time of better prices.
And, what was far worse, at the suggestion surely of Satan I had
turned three tame rabbits loose upon the island; and from the one doe
were bred in two or three years so many thousands of these pestilent
creatures that when in 1425 we came to plant the vines and canes, not
one green shoot in a million escaped. Thus it happened that by 1428 my
kingdom had become but a barren rock, dependent for its revenues upon
the moss called the orchilla weed of which the darker and better kind
could be gathered only by painful journeys inland.

You may see, therefore, that I had little to comfort me as I paced
before my house that morning. I was Governor of an impoverished rock
on which I had wasted the toil and thought of eight good years of my
prime: my title was hereditary, but I had in those days no son to
inherit it. And when I considered the fortune I had exchanged for
this, and my pleasant days in Dom Henry’s service at Sagres, I accused
myself for the most miserable among men.

Now, at the north-western angle of my house, and a little below the
terrace where I walked, there grew a plantation of dragon-trees, one
of the few left upon the island. Each time this sentry-walk of mine
brought me back to the angle I would halt before turning and eye the
trees, sourly pondering on our incredible folly. For, on my first
coming they had grown everywhere, and some with trunks great enough
to make a boat for half a dozen men: but we had cut them down for all
kinds of uses, whenever a man had wanted wood for a shield or a bushel
for his corn, and now they scarce grew fruit enough to fatten the
hogs. It was standing there and eyeing my dragon-trees that over the
tops of them I caught sight of the pinnace plying towards the island.
I remember clearly what manner of day it was; clear and fresh, the
sea scarce heaving, but ruffled under a southerly breeze. The small
vessel, though well enough handled, made a sorry leeway by reason of
her over-tall sides, and lost so much time at every board through the
labour of lowering and rehoisting her great lateen yard that I judged
it would take her three good hours before she came to anchor in the
port below.

I could not find that she had any hostile appearance, yet–as my duty
was–sent down word to the guard to challenge her business before
admitting her; and a little before nine o’clock I put on my coat
and walked down to the haven to look after this with my own eyes. I
arrived almost at the moment when she entered and her crew, with sail
partly lowered, rounded her very cleverly up in the wind.

The guard-boat put off at once and boarded her; and by-and-by came
back with word that the pinnace was English (which by this time I had
guessed), by name the George of Bristol, and owned by an Englishman
of quality, who, by reason of his extreme age, desired of my courtesy
that I would come on board and confer with him. This at first I was
unwilling to risk: but seeing her moored well under the five guns of
our fort, and her men so far advanced with the furling of her big sail
that no sudden stroke of treachery could be attempted except to her
destruction, I sent word to the gunners to keep a brisk look-out, and
stepping into the boat was pulled alongside.

At the head of the ladder there met me an aged gentleman, lean and
bald and wrinkled, with narrow eyes and a skin like clear vellum. For
all the heat of the day he wore a furred cloak which reached to his
knees; also a thin gold chain around his neck: and this scrag neck and
the bald head above it stood out from his fur collar as if they had
been a vulture’s. By his dress and the embroidered bag at his girdle,
and the clasps of his furred shoes, I made no doubt he was a rich man;
and he leaned on an ebony staff or wand capped with a pretty device of
ivory and gold.

He stood thus, greeting me with as many bobs of the head as a bird
makes when pecking an apple; and at first he poured out a string of
salutations (I suppose) in English, a language with which I have no
familiarity. This he perceived after a moment, and seemed not a little
vexed; but covering himself and turning his back shuffled off to a
door under the poop.

“Martin!” he called in a high broken voice. “Martin!”

A little man of my own country, very yellow and foxy, came running
out, and the pair talked together for a moment before advancing
towards me.

“Your Excellency,” the interpreter began, “this is a gentleman of
England who desires that you will dine with him to-day. His name is
Master Thomas d’Arfet, and he has some questions to put to you, of
your country, in private.”

“D’Arfet?” I mused: and as my brows went up at the name I caught the
old gentleman watching me with an eye which was sharp enough within
its dulled rim. “Will you answer that I am at his service, but on the
one condition that he comes ashore and dines with me.”

When this was reported at first Master d’Arfet would have none of it,
but rapped his staff on the desk and raised a score of objections in
his scolding voice. Since I could understand none of them, I added
very firmly that it was my rule; that he could be carried up to my
house on a litter without an ache of his bones; and, in short, that I
must either have his promise or leave the ship.

He would have persisted, I doubt not; but it is ill disputing through
an interpreter, and he ended by giving way with a very poor grace. So
ashore we rowed him with the man Martin, and two of my guard conveyed
him up the hill in a litter, on which he sat for all the world like a
peevish cross’d child. In my great airy dining-room he seemed to cool
down and pick up his better humour by degrees. He spoke but little
during the meal, and that little was mainly addressed to Martin, who
stood behind his chair: but I saw his eyes travelling around the
panelled walls and studying the portraits, the furniture, the neat
table, the many comforts which it clearly astonished him to find on
this forsaken island. Also he as clearly approved of the food and of
my wine of Malmsey. Now and then he would steal a look at my wife
Beatrix, or at one or the other of my three daughters, and again gaze
out at the sea beyond the open window, as though trying to piece it
all together into one picture.

But it was not until the womenfolk had risen and retired that he
unlocked his thoughts to me. And I hold even now that his first
question was a curious one.

“Dom Bartholomew Perestrello, are you a happy man?”

Had it come from his own lips it might have found me better prepared:
but popped at me through the mouth of an interpreter, a servant who
(for all his face told) might have been handing it on a dish, his
question threw me out of my bearings.

“Well, Sir,” I found myself answering, “I hope you see that I have
much to thank God for.” And while this was being reported to him I
recalled with a twinge my dejected thoughts of the morning. “I have
made many mistakes,” I began again.

But without seeming to hear, Master d’Arfet began to dictate to
Martin, who, after a polite pause to give me time to finish if I cared
to, translated in his turn.

“I have told you my name. It is Thomas d’Arfet, and I come from
Bristol. You have heard my name before?”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on his.

“I also have heard of you, and of the two captains in whose company
you discovered these islands.”

I nodded again. “Their names,” said I, “are John Gonsalvez Zarco
and Tristram Vaz. You may visit them, if you please, on the greater
island, which they govern between them.”

He bent his head. “The fame of your discovery, Sir, reached England
some years ago. I heard at the time, and paid it just so much heed as
one does pay to the like news–just so much and no more. The manner
of your discovery of the greater island came to my ears less than a
twelvemonth ago, and then but in rumours and broken hints. Yet here
am I, close on my eightieth year, voyaging more than half across the
world to put those broken hints together and resolve my doubts.
Tell me”–he leaned forward over the table, peering eagerly into my
eyes–”there was a tale concerning the island–concerning a former
discovery–”

“Yes,” said I, as he broke off, his eyes still searching mine, “there
was a tale concerning the island.”

“Brought to you by a Spanish pilot, who had picked it up on the
Barbary coast?”

“You have heard correctly,” said I. “The pilot’s name was Morales.”

“Well, it is to hear that tale that I have travelled across the world
to visit you.”

“Ah, but forgive me, Sir!” I poured out another glassful of wine, drew
up my chair, rested both elbows on the table, and looked at him over
my folded hands. “You must first satisfy me what reason you have for
asking.”

“My name is Thomas d’Arfet,” he said.

“I do not forget it: but maybe I should rather have said–What aim you
have in asking. I ought first to know that, methinks.”

In his impatience he would have leapt from his chair had his old limbs
allowed. Pressing the table with white finger-tips, he sputtered some
angry words of English, and then fell back on the interpreter Martin,
who from first to last wore a countenance fixed like a mask.

“Mother of Heaven, Sir! You see me here, a man of eighty, broken of
wind and limb, palsied, with one foot in the grave: you know what it
costs to fit out and victual a ship for a voyage: you know as well as
any man, and far better than I, the perils of these infernal seas. I
brave those perils, undergo those charges, drag my old limbs these
thousands of miles from the vault where they are due to rest–and you
ask me if I have any reason for coming!”

“Not at all,” I answered. “I perceive rather that you must have an
extraordinarily strong reason–a reason or a purpose clean beyond my
power of guessing. And that is just why I wish to hear it.”

“Men of my age–” he began, but I stopped Martin’s translation midway.

“Men of your age, Sir, do not threaten the peace of such islands as
these. Men of your age do not commonly nurse dangerous schemes. All
that I can well believe. Men of your age, as you say, do not chase a
wild goose so far from their chimney-side. But men of your age are
also wise enough to know that governors of colonies–ay,” for my words
were being interpreted to him a dozen at a time and I saw the sneer
grow on his face, “even of so poor a colony as this–do not give up
even a small secret to the very first questioner.”

“But the secret is one no longer. Even in England I had word of it.”

“And your presence here,” said I, “is proof enough that you learned
less than you wanted.”

He drew his brows together over his narrow eyes. I think what first
set me against the man was the look of those eyes, at once malevolent
and petty. You may see the like in any man completely ungenerous. Also
the bald skin upon his skull was drawn extremely tight, while the
flesh dropped in folds about his neck and under his lean chaps, and
the longer I pondered this the more distasteful I found him.

“You forget, Sir,” said he–and while Martin translated he still
seemed to chew the words–”the story is not known to you only. I can
yet seek out the pilot himself.”

“Morales? He is dead these three years.”

“Your friends, then, upon the greater island. Failing them, I can yet
put back to Lagos and appeal to the Infante himself–for doubtless he
knows. Time is nothing to me now.” He sat his chin obstinately, and
then, not without nobility, pushed his glass from him and stood up.
“Sir,” said he, “I began by asking if you were a happy man. I am a
most unhappy one, and (I will confess) the unhappier since you have
made it clear that you cannot or will not understand me. In my youth
a great wrong was done me. You know my name, and you guess what
that wrong was: but you ask yourself, ‘Is it possible this old man
remembers, after sixty years?’ Sir, it is possible, nay, certain;
because I have never for an hour forgotten. You tell yourself, ‘It
cannot be this only: there must be something behind.’ There is nothing
behind; nothing. I am the Thomas d’Arfet whose wife betrayed him just
sixty years ago; that, and no more. I come on no State errand, I!
I have no son, no daughter; I never, to my knowledge, possessed a
friend. I trusted a woman, and she poisoned the world for me. I
acknowledge in return a duty to no man but myself; I have voyaged thus
far out of that duty. You, Sir, have thought it fitter to baffle than
to aid me–well and good. But by the Christ above us I will follow
that duty out; and, at the worst, death, when it comes, shall find me
pursuing it!”

He spoke this with a passion of voice which I admired before his
man began to interpret: and even when I heard it repeated in level
Portuguese, and had time to digest it and extract its monstrous
selfishness, I could look at him with compassion, almost with respect.
His cheeks had lost their flush almost as rapidly as they had taken it
on, and he stood awkwardly pulling at his long bony fingers until the
joints cracked.

“Be seated, Sir,” said I. “It is clear to me that I must be a far
happier man than I considered myself only this morning, since I find
nothing in myself which, under any usage of God, could drive me on
such a pursuit as yours would seem to be. I may perhaps, without
hypocrisy, thank God that I cannot understand you. But this, at
any rate, is clear–that you seek only a private satisfaction: and
although I cannot tell you the story here and now, something I will
promise. As soon as you please I will sail with you to the greater
island, and we will call together on Count Zarco. In his keeping lies
one of the two copies of Morales’ story as we took it down from his
lips at Sagres, or, rather, compiled it after much questioning. It
shall be for the Count to produce or withhold it, as he may decide.
He is a just man, and neither one way nor the other will I attempt to
sway him.”

Master d’Arfet considered for a while. Then said he, “I thank you: but
will you sail with me in my pinnace or in your own?”

“In my own,” said I, “as I suspect you will choose to go in yours.
I promise we shall outsail you; but I promise also to await your
arriving, and give the Count his free choice. If you knew him,” I
added, “you would know such a promise to be superfluous.”

II

My own pinnace arrived in sight of Funchal two mornings later, and a
little after sunrise. We had outsailed the Englishman, as I promised,
and lay off-and-on for more than two hours before he came up with us.
I knew that Count Zarco would be sitting at this time in the sunshine
before his house and above the fennel plain, hearing complaints and
administering justice: I knew, moreover, that he would recognise my
pinnace at once: and from time to time I laughed to myself to think
how this behaviour of ours must be puzzling my old friend.

Therefore I was not surprised to find him already arrived at the
quay when we landed; with a groom at a little distance holding his
magnificent black stallion. For I must tell you that my friend was
ever, and is to this day, a big man in all his ways–big of stature,
big of voice, big of heart, and big to lordliness in his notions of
becoming display. None but Zarco would have chosen for his title,
“Count of the Chamber of the Wolves,” deriving it from a cave where
his men had started a herd of sea-calves on his first landing and
taking seizin of the island. And the black stallion he rode when
another would have been content with a mule; and the spray of fennel
in his hat; and the ribbon, without which he never appeared among his
dependents; were all a part of his large nature, which was guileless
and simple withal as any child’s.

Now, for all my dislike, I had found the old Englishman a person
of some dignity and command: but it was wonderful how, in Zarco’s
presence, he shrank to a withered creature, a mere applejack without
juice or savour. The man (I could see) was eager to get to business
at once, and could well have done without the ceremony of which Zarco
would not omit the smallest trifle. After the first salutations came
the formal escort to the Governor’s house; and after that a meal which
lasted us two hours; and then the Count must have us visit his new
sugar-mills and inspect the Candia vines freshly pegged out, and
discuss them. On all manner of trifles he would invite Master
d’Arfet’s opinion: but to show any curiosity or to allow his guests to
satisfy any, did not belong to his part of host–a part he played
with a thoroughness which diverted me while it drove the Englishman
well-nigh mad.

But late in the afternoon, and after we had worked our way through a
second prodigious meal, I had compassion on the poor man, and taking
(as we say) the bull by both horns, announced the business which had
brought us. At once Zarco became grave.

“My dear Bartholomew,” said he, “you did right, of course, to bring
Master d’Arfet to me. But why did you show any hesitation?” Before I
could answer he went on: “Clearly, as the lady’s husband, he has a
right to know what he seeks. She left him: but her act cannot annul
any rights of his which the Holy Church gave him, and of which, until
he dies, only the Holy Church can deprive him. He shall see Morales’
statement as we took it down in writing: but he should have the story
from the beginning: and since it is a long one, will you begin and
tell so much as you know?”

“If it please you,” said I, and this being conveyed to Master d’Arfet,
while Zarco sent a servant with his keys for the roll of parchment, we
drew up our chairs to the table, and I began.

“It was in September, 1419,” said I, “when the two captains, John
Gonsalvez Zarco and Tristram Vaz, returned to Lagos from their first
adventure in these seas. I was an equerry of our master, the Infante
Henry, at that time, and busy with him in rebuilding and enlarging the
old arsenal on the neck of Cape Sagres; whence, by his wisdom, so many
expeditions have been sent forth since to magnify God and increase the
knowledge of mankind.

“We had built already the chapel and the library, with its map-room,
and the Prince and I were busy there together on the plans for his
observatory in the late afternoon when the caravels were sighted: and
the news being brought, his Highness left me at work while he rode
down to the port to receive his captains. I was still working by
lamplight in the map-room when he returned, bringing them and a third
man, the old Spaniard Morales.

“Seating himself at the table, he bade me leave my plans, draw my
chair over, and take notes in writing of the captains’ report. Zarco
told the story–he being first in command, and Tristram Vaz a silent
man, then and always: and save for a question here and there, the
Prince listened without comment, deferring to examine it until the
whole had been related.

“Now, in one way, the expedition had failed, for the caravels had been
sent to explore the African coast beyond Cape Bojador, and as far
south as might be; whereas they had scarcely put to sea before a
tempest drove them to the westward, and far from any coast at all.
Indeed, they had no hope left, nor any expectation but to founder,
when they sighted the island; and so came by God’s blessing to the
harbour which, in their joy, they named Porto Santo. There, finding
their caravels strained beyond their means to repair for a long
voyage, and deeming that this discovery well outweighed their first
purpose, they stayed but a sufficient time to explore the island, and
so put back for Lagos. But their good fortune was not yet at an end:
for off the Barbary coasts they fell in with and captured a Spaniard
containing much merchandise and two score of poor souls ransomed out
of captivity with the Barbary corsairs. ‘And among them,’ said my
friend Gonsalvez, ‘your Highness will find this one old man, if I
mistake not, to be worth the charges of two such expeditions as ours.’

“Upon this we all turned our eyes upon the Spaniard, who had been
shrinking back as if to avoid the lamplight. He must have been a
tall, up-standing man in his prime; but now, as Tristram Vaz drew him
forward, his knees bowed as if he cringed for some punishment. ‘Twas
a shock, this fawning carriage of a figure so venerable: but when
Tristram Vaz drew off the decent doublet he wore and displayed his
back, we wondered no longer. Zarco pushed him into a chair and held
a lamp while the Prince examined the man’s right foot, where an
ankle-ring had bitten it so that to his death (although it scarcely
hindered his walking) the very bone showed itself naked between the
healed edges of the wound.

“Moreover, when Zarco persuaded him to talk in Spanish it was some
while before we could understand more than a word or two here and
there. The man had spent close upon thirty years in captivity, and his
native speech had all but dried up within him. Also he had no longer
any thought of difference between his own country and another: it was
enough to be among Christians again: nor could we for awhile disengage
that which was of moment from the rambling nonsense with which he
wrapped it about. He, poor man! was concerned chiefly with his
own sufferings, while we were listening for our advantage: yet as
Christians we forbore while he muttered on, and when a word or two
fell from him which might be of service, we recalled him to them (I
believe) as gently as we could.

“Well, the chaff being sifted away, the grain came to this: His name
was Morales, his birthplace Cadiz, his calling that of pilot: he had
fallen (as I have said) into the hands of the Moors about thirty years
before: and at Azamor, or a little inland, he had made acquaintance
with a fellow-prisoner, an Englishman, by name Roger Prince, or
Prance. This man had spent the best part of his life in captivity, and
at one time had changed his faith to get better usage: but his first
master dying at a great age, he passed to another, who cruelly
ill-treated him, and under whose abominable punishments he quickly
sank. He lay, indeed, at the point of death when Morales happened upon
him. Upon some small act of kindness such as one slave may do for
another, the two had made friends: and thus Morales came to hear the
poor Englishman’s story.”

Here I broke off and nodded to the Count, who called for a lamp. And
so for a few minutes we all sat without speech in the twilight, the
room silent save for the cracking of Master d’Arfet’s knuckles. When
at length the lamp arrived, Zarco trimmed it carefully, unfolded his
parchment, spread it on the table, and began to read very deliberately
in his rolling voice, pausing and looking up between the sentences
while the man Martin translated–

“This is the statement made to me by Roger Prance, the Englishman,
Anno MCCCCIX., at various times in the month before he died.

“He said: My name is Roger Prance. I come from St. Lawrence on the
River Jo,[A] in England. From a boy I followed the sea in the ships
of Master Canynge,[B] of Bristol, sailing always from that port with
cargoes of wool, and mostly to the Baltic, where we filled with
stock-fish: but once we went south to your own city of Cadiz, and
returned with wines and a little spice purchased of a Levantine
merchant in the port. My last three voyages were taken in the Mary
Radclyf or Redcliffe. One afternoon” [the year he could not
remember, but it may have been 1373 or 1374] “I was idle on the Quay
near Vyell’s tower, when there comes to me Gervase Hankock, master,
and draws me aside, and says he: ‘The vessel will be ready sooner than
you think,’ and named the time–to wit, by the night next following.
Now I, knowing that she had yet not any cargo on board, thought him
out of his mind: but said he, ‘It is a secret business, and double pay
for you if you are ready and hold your tongue between this and then.’

[Footnote A: Wick St. Lawrence on the Yeo, in Somerset.]

[Footnote B: Grandfather of the famous merchant, William Canynge.]

“So at the time he named I was ready with the most of our old crew,
and all wondering; with the ship but half ballasted as she came from
the Baltic and her rigging not seen to, but moored down between the
marshes at the opening of the River Avon.

“At ten o’clock then comes a whistle from the shore, and anon in a
shore-boat our master with a young man and woman well wrapped, and
presently cuts the light hawser we rode by; and so we dropped down
upon the tide and were out to sea by morning.

“All this time we knew nothing of our two passengers; nor until we
were past the Land’s End did they come on deck. But when they did, it
was hand in hand and as lovers; the man a mere youngster, straight,
and gentle in feature and dress, but she the loveliest lady your
eyes ever looked upon. One of our company, Will Tamblyn, knew her at
once–as who would not that had once seen her?–and he cried out with
an oath that she was Mistress d’Arfet, but newly married to a rich
man a little to the north of Bristol. Afterwards, when Master Gervase
found that we knew so much, he made no difficulty to tell us more; as
that the name of her lover was Robert Machin or Macham, a youth of
good family, and that she it was who had hired the ship, being an
heiress in her own right.

“We held southward after clearing the land; with intent, as I suppose,
to make one of the Breton ports. But about six leagues from the French
coast a tempest overtook us from the north-east and drove us beyond
Channel, and lasted with fury for twelve days, all of which time we
ran before it, until on the fourteenth day we sighted land where never
we looked to find any, and came to a large island, thickly wooded,
with high mountains in the midst of it.

“Coasting this island we soon arrived off a pretty deep bay, lined
with cedar-trees: and here Master Machin had the boat lowered and bore
his mistress to land: for the voyage had crazed her, and plainly her
time for this world was not long. Six of us went with them in the
boat, the rest staying by the ship, which was anchored not a mile from
shore. There we made for the poor lady a couch of cedar-boughs with a
spare sail for awning, and her lover sat beside her for two nights and
a day, holding of her hand and talking with her, and wiping her lips
or holding the cup to them when she moaned in her thirst. But at dawn
of the second day she died.

“Then we, who slept on the beach at a little distance, being waked by
his terrible cry, looked up and supposed he had called out for the
loss of the ship. Because the traitors on board of her, considering
how that they had the lady’s wealth, had weighed or slipped anchor in
the night (for certainly there was not wind enough to drag by), and
now the ship was nowhere in sight. But when we came to Master Machin
he took no account of our news: only he sat like a statue and stared
at the sea, and then at his dead lady, and ‘Well,’ he said; ‘is she
gone?’ We knew not whether he meant the lady or the ship: nor would he
taste any food though we offered it, but turned his face away.

“So that evening we buried the body, and five days later we buried
Master Machin beside her, with a wooden cross at their heads. Then,
not willing to perish on the island, we caught and killed four of the
sheep which ran wild thereon, and having stored the boat with their
flesh (and it was bitter to taste), and launched it, steered, as well
as we could contrive, due east. And so on the eleventh day we were
cast on the coast near to Mogador: but two had died on the way. Here
(for we were starving and could offer no fight) some Moors took us,
and carrying us into the town, sold us into that slavery in which I
have passed all my miserable life since. What became of the Mary
Radclyf I have never heard: nor of the three who came ashore with me
have I had tidings since the day we were sold.”

Here Zarco came to the end of his reading: and facing again on Master
d’Arfet (who sat pulling his fingers while his mouth worked as if he
chewed something) I took up the tale.

“All this, Sir, by little and little the pilot Morales told us, there
in the Prince’s map-room: and you may be sure we kept it to ourselves.
But the next spring our royal master must fit out two caravels to
colonise Porto Santo; with corn and honey on board, and sugar-canes
and vines and (that ever I should say it!) rabbits. Gonsalvez was
leader, of course, with Tristram Vaz: and to my great joy the Prince
appointed me third in command.

“We sailed from Lagos in June and reached Porto Santo without mishap.
Here Gonsalvez found all well with the colonists he had left behind on
his former visit. But of one thing they were as eager to tell as of
their prosperity: and we had not arrived many hours before they led us
to the top of the island and pointed to a dark line of cloud (as it
seemed) lying low in the south-west. They had kept watch on this (they
said) day by day, until they had made certain it could not be a cloud,
for it never altered its shape. While we gazed at it I heard the
pilot’s voice say suddenly at my shoulder, ‘That will be the island,
Captain–the Englishman’s island!’ and I turned and saw that he was
trembling. But Gonsalvez, who had been musing, looked up at him
sharply. ‘All my life’ said he, ‘I have been sailing the seas, yet
never saw landfall like yonder. That which we look upon is cloud and
not land.’ ‘But who,’ I asked, ‘ever saw a fixed cloud?’ ‘Marry, I for
one,’ he answered, ‘and every seaman who has sailed beside Sicily! But
say nothing to the men; for if they believe a volcano lies yonder we
shall hardly get them to cross.’ ‘Yet,’ said Morales, ‘by your leave,
Captain, that is no volcano, but such a cloud as might well rest over
the thick moist woodlands of which the Englishman told me.’ ‘Well,
that we shall discover by God’s grace,’ Gonsalvez made answer. ‘You
will cross thither?’ I asked. ‘Why to be sure,’ said he cheerfully,
with a look at Tristram Vaz; and Tristram Vaz nodded, saying nothing.

“Yet he had no easy business with his sailors, who had quickly made up
their own minds about this cloud and that it hung over a pit of fire.
One or two had heard tell of Cipango, and allowed this might be that
lost wandering land. ‘But how can we tell what perils await us there?’
‘Marry, by going and finding out,’ growled Tristram Vaz, and this was
all the opinion he uttered. As for Morales, they would have it he was
a Castilian, a foreigner, and only too eager to injure us Portuguese.

“But Gonsalvez had enough courage for all: and on the ninth morning he
and Tristram set sail, with their crews as near mutiny as might be.
Me they left to rule Porto Santo. ‘And if we never come back,’ said
Gonsalvez, ‘you will tell the Prince that something lies yonder
which we would have found, but our men murdered us on the way–’”

“My dear brother Bartholomew,” Gonsalvez broke in, “you are wearying
Master d’Arfet, who has no wish to hear about me.” And taking up the
tale he went on: “We sailed, Sir, after six hours into as thick a fog
as I have met even on these seas, and anon into a noise of breakers
which seemed to be all about us. So I prayed to the Mother of Heaven
and kept the lead busy, and always found deep water: and more by God’s
guidance than our management we missed the Desertas, where a tall bare
rock sprang out of the fog so close on our larboard quarter that the
men cried out it was a giant in black armour rising out of the waves.
So we left it and the noises behind, and by-and-by I shifted the helm
and steered towards the east of the bank, which seemed to me not so
thick thereabouts: and so the fog rolled up and we saw red cliffs and
a low black cape, which I named the Cape of St. Lawrence. And beyond
this, where all appeared to be marshland, we came to a forest shore
with trees growing to the water’s edge and filling the chasms between
the cliffs. We were now creeping along the south of the island, and in
clearer weather, but saw no good landing until Morales shouted aft to
me that we were opening the Gulf of Cedars. Now I, perceiving some
recess in the cliffs which seemed likely to give a fair landing, let
him have his way: for albeit we could never win it out of him in
words, I knew that the Englishman must have given him some particular
description of the place, from the confidence he had always used in
speaking of it. So now we had cast anchor, and were well on our way
shoreward in the boat before I could be certain what manner of trees
clothed this Gulf: but Morales never showed doubt or hesitancy; and
being landed, led us straight up the beach and above the tide-mark to
the foot of a low cliff, where was a small pebbled mound and a plain
cross of wood. And kneeling beside them I prayed for the souls’ rest
of that lamentable pair, and so took seizin of the island in the names
of our King John, Prince Henry, and the Order of Christ. That, Sir, is
the story, and I will not weary you by telling how we embarked again
and came to this plain which lies at our feet. So much as I believe
will concern you you have heard: and the grave you shall look upon
to-morrow.”

Master d’Arfet had left off cracking his joints, and for a while after
the end of the story sat drumming with his finger-tips on the table.
At length he looked up, and says he–

“I may suppose, Count Zarco, that as governor of this island you have
power to allot and sell estates upon it on behalf of the King of
Portugal?”

“Why, yes,” answered Gonsalvez; “any new settler in Funchal must make
his purchase through me: the northern province of Machico I leave to
Tristram Vaz.”

“I speak of your southern province, and indeed of its foreshore, the
possession of which I suppose to be claimed by the crown of Portugal.”

“That is so.”

“To be precise I speak of this Gulf of Cedars, as you call it. You
will understand that I have not seen it: I count on your promise to
take me thither to-morrow. But it may save time, and I shall take
it as a favour if–without binding yourself or me to any immediate
bargain–you can give me some notion of the price you would want for
it. But perhaps”–here he lifted his eyes from the table and glanced
at Gonsalvez cunningly–”you have already conveyed that parcel of
land, and I must deal with another.”

Now Gonsalvez had opened his mouth to say something, but here
compressed his lips for a moment before answering.

“No: it is still in my power to allot.”

“In England just now,” went on Master d’Arfet “we should call ten
shillings an acre good rent for unstocked land. We take it at sixpence
per annum rent and twenty years’ purchase. I am speaking of reasonably
fertile land, and hardly need to point out that in offering any
such price for mere barren foreshore I invite you to believe me
half-witted. But, as we say at home, he who keeps a fancy must pay a
tax for it: and a man of my age with no heir of his body can afford to
spend as he pleases.”

Gonsalvez stared at him, and from him to me, with a puzzled frown.

“Bartholomew,” said he, “I cannot understand this gentleman. What can
he want to purchase in the Gulf of Cedars but his wife’s grave? And
yet of such a bargain how can he speak as he has spoken?”

I shook my head. “It must be that he is a merchant, and is too old to
speak but as a haggler. Yet I am sure his mind works deeper than this
haggling.” I paused, with my eyes upon Master d’Arfet’s hands, which
were hooked now like claws over the table which his fingers still
pressed: and this gesture of his put a sudden abominable thought in my
mind. “Yes, he wishes to buy his wife’s grave. Ask him–” I cried, and
with that I broke off.

But Gonsalvez nodded. “I know,” said he softly, and turned to the
Englishman. “Your desire Sir, is to buy the grave I spoke of?”

Master d’Arfet nodded.

“With what purpose? Come, Sir, your one chance is to be plain with us.
It may be the difference in our race hinders my understanding you: it
may be I am a simple captain and unused to the ways and language of
the market. In any case put aside the question of price, for were
that all between us I would say to you as Ephron the Hittite said
to Abraham. ‘Hear me, my lord,’ I would say, ‘what is four hundred
shekels of silver betwixt me and thee? Bury therefore thy dead.’ But
between you and me is more than this: something I cannot fathom. Yet
I must know it before consenting. I demand, therefore, what is your
purpose?”

Master d’Arfet met him straightly enough with those narrow eyes of
his, and said he, “My purpose, Count, is as simple as you describe
your mind to be. Honest seaman, I desire that grave only that I may be
buried in it.”

“Then my thought did you wrong, Master d’Arfet, and I crave your
pardon. The grave is yours without price. You shall rest in the end
beside the man and woman who wronged you, and at the Last Day, when
you rise together, may God forgive you as you forgave them!”

The Englishman did not answer for near a minute. His fingers had begun
to drum on the table again and his eyes were bent upon them. At length
he raised his head, and this time to speak slowly and with effort–

“In my country, Count, a bargain is a bargain. When I seek a parcel of
ground, my purpose with it is my affair only: my neighbour fixes his
price, and if it suit me I buy, and there’s an end. Now I have passed
my days in buying and selling and you count me a huckster. Yet we
merchants have our rules of honour as well as you nobles: and if in
England I bargain as I have described, it is because between me and
the other man the rules are understood. But I perceive that between
you and me the bargain must be different, since you sell on condition
of knowing my purpose, and would not sell if my purpose offended
you. Therefore to leave you in error concerning my purpose would be
cheating: and, Sir, I have never cheated in my life. At the risk then,
or the certainty, of losing my dearest wish I must tell you this–I
do not forgive my wife Anne or Robert Machin: and though I would be
buried in their grave, it shall not be beside them.”

“How then?” cried Gonsalvez and I in one voice.

“I would be buried, Sirs, not beside but between them. Ah? Your eyes
were moist, I make no doubt, when you first listened to the pretty
affecting tale of their love and misfortune? Not yet has it struck
either of you to what a hell they left me. And I have been living in
it ever since! Think! I loved that woman. She wronged me hatefully,
meanly: yet she and he died together, feeling no remorse. It is I who
keep the knowledge of their vileness which shall push them asunder as
I stretch myself at length in my cool dead ease, content, with my long
purpose achieved, with the vengeance prepared, and nothing to do but
wait securely for the Day of Judgment. Pardon me, Sirs, that I say
‘this shall be,’ whereas I read in your faces that you refuse me. I
have cheered an unhappy life by this one promise, which at the end I
have thrown away upon a little scruple.” He passed a hand over his
eyes and stood up. “It is curious,” he said, and stood musing. “It is
curious,” he repeated, and turning to Gonsalvez said in a voice empty
of passion, “You refuse me, I understand?”

“Yes,” Gonsalvez answered. “I salute you for an honest gentleman; but
I may not grant your wish.”

“It is curious,” Master d’Arfet repeated once more, and looked at us
queerly, as if seeking to excuse his weakness in our judgment. “So
small a difficulty!”

Gonsalvez bowed. “You have taught us this, Sir, that the world speaks
at random, but in the end a man’s honour rests in no hands but his
own.”

Master d’Arfet waited while Martin translated; then he put out a hand
for his staff, found it, turned on his heel and tottered from the
room, the interpreter following with a face which had altered nothing
during our whole discourse.

       *       *       *       *       *

Master d’Arfet sailed at daybreak, having declined Gonsalvez’ offer
to show him the grave. My old friend insisted that I must stay a week
with him, and from the terrace before his house we watched the English
pinnace till she rounded the point to eastward and disappeared.

“After all,” said I, “we treated him hardly.”

But Gonsalvez said: “A husk of a man! All the blood in him sour! And
yet,” he mused, “the husk kept him noble after a sort.”

And he led me away to the warm slopes to see how his young vines were
doing.

“So you reckon I’ve got to die?”

The room was mean, but not without distinction. The meanness lay in
lime-washed walls, scant fittings, and uncovered boards; the distinction
came of ample proportions and something of durability in the furniture.
Rooms, like human faces, reflect their histories; and that generation
after generation of the same family had here struggled to birth or death
was written in this chamber unmistakably. The candle-light, twinkling
on the face of a dark wardrobe near the door, lit up its rough
inscription, “S.T. and M.T., MDCLXVII”; the straight-backed oaken chairs
might well claim an equal age; and the bed in the corner was a spacious
four-poster, pillared in smooth mahogany and curtained in faded green
damask.

In the shadow of this bed lay the man who had spoken. A single candle
stood on a tall chest at his left hand, and its ray, filtering through
the thin green curtain, emphasised the hue of death on his face.
The features were pinched, and very old. His tone held neither
complaint nor passion: it was matter-of-fact even, as of one whose talk
is merely a concession to good manners. There was the faintest
interrogation in it; no more.

After a minute or so, getting no reply, he added more querulously–

“I reckon you might answer, ‘Lizabeth. Do ‘ee think I’ve got to die?”

‘Lizabeth, who stood by the uncurtained window, staring into the
blackness without, barely turned her head to answer–

“Certain.”

“Doctor said so, did he?”

‘Lizabeth, still with her back towards him, nodded. For a minute or two
there was silence.

“I don’t feel like dyin’; but doctor ought to know. Seemed to me ’twas
harder, an’–an’ more important. This sort o’ dyin’ don’t seem o’ much
account.”

“No?”

“That’s it. I reckon, though, ‘twould be other if I had a family round
the bed. But there ain’t none o’ the boys left to stand by me now.
It’s hard.”

“What’s hard?”

“Why, that two out o’ the three should be called afore me. And hard is
the manner of it. It’s hard that, after Samuel died o’ fever, Jim shud
be blown up at Herodsfoot powder-mill. He made a lovely corpse, did
Samuel; but Jim, you see, he hadn’t a chance. An’ as for William, he’s
never come home nor wrote a line since he joined the Thirty-Second; an’
it’s little he cares for his home or his father. I reckoned, back
along, ‘Lizabeth, as you an’ he might come to an understandin’.”

“William’s naught to me.”

“Look here!” cried the old man sharply; “he treated you bad, did
William.”

“Who says so?”

“Why, all the folks. Lord bless the girl! do ‘ee think folks use their
eyes without usin’ their tongues? An’ I wish it had come about, for
you’d ha’ kept en straight. But he treated you bad, and he treated me
bad, tho’ he won’t find no profit o’ that. You’m my sister’s child,
‘Lizabeth,” he rambled on; “an’ what house-room you’ve had you’ve fairly
earned–not but what you was welcome: an’ if I thought as there was harm
done, I’d curse him ‘pon my deathbed, I would.”

“You be quiet!”

She turned from the window and cowed him with angry grey eyes.
Her figure was tall and meagre; her face that of a woman well over
thirty–once comely, but worn over-much, and prematurely hardened.
The voice had hardened with it, perhaps. The old man, who had risen on
his elbow in an access of passion, was taken with a fit of coughing, and
sank back upon the pillows.

“There’s no call to be niffy,” he apologised at last. “I was on’y
thinkin’ of how you’d manage when I’m dead an’ gone.”

“I reckon I’ll shift.”

She drew a chair towards the bed and sat beside him. He seemed drowsy,
and after a while stretched out an arm over the coverlet and fell
asleep. ‘Lizabeth took his hand, and sat there listlessly regarding the
still shadows on the wall. The sick man never moved; only muttered
once–some words that ‘Lizabeth did not catch. At the end of an hour,
alarmed perhaps by some sound within the bed’s shadow, or the feel of
the hand in hers, she suddenly pushed the curtain back, and, catching up
the candle, stooped over the sick man.

His lids were closed, as if he slept still; but he was quite dead.

‘Lizabeth stood for a while bending over him, smoothed the bedclothes
straight, and quietly left the room. It was a law of the house to doff
boots and shoes at the foot of the stairs, and her stocking’d feet
scarcely raised a creak from the solid timbers. The staircase led
straight down into the kitchen. Here a fire was blazing cheerfully, and
as she descended she felt its comfort after the dismal room above.

Nevertheless, the sense of being alone in the house with a dead man, and
more than a mile from any living soul, was disquieting. In truth, there
was room for uneasiness. ‘Lizabeth knew that some part of the old man’s
hoard lay up-stairs in the room with him. Of late she had, under his
eye, taken from a silver tankard in the tall chest by the bed such
moneys as from week to week were wanted to pay the farm hands; and she
had seen papers there, too–title-deeds, maybe. The house itself lay in
a cup of the hill-side, backed with steep woods–so steep that, in
places, anyone who had reasons (good or bad) for doing so, might well
see in at any window he chose. And to Hooper’s Farm, down the valley,
was a far cry for help. Meditating on this, ‘Lizabeth stepped to the
kitchen window and closed the shutter; then, reaching down an old
horse-pistol from the rack above the mantelshelf, she fetched out powder
and bullet and fell to loading quietly, as one who knew the trick of it.

And yet the sense of danger was not so near as that of loneliness–of a
pervading silence without precedent in her experience, as if its
master’s soul in flitting had, whatever Scripture may say, taken
something out of the house with it. ‘Lizabeth had known this kitchen
for a score of years now; nevertheless, to-night it was unfamiliar, with
emptier corners and wider intervals of bare floor. She laid down the
loaded pistol, raked the logs together, and set the kettle on the flame.
She would take comfort in a dish of tea.

There was company in the singing of the kettle, the hiss of its overflow
on the embers, and the rattle with which she set out cup, saucer, and
teapot. She was bending over the hearth to lift the kettle, when a
sound at the door caused her to start up and listen.

The latch had been rattled: not by the wind, for the December night
without was misty and still. There was somebody on the other side of
the door; and, as she turned, she saw the latch lowered back into its
place.

With her eyes fastened on this latch, she set down the kettle softly and
reached out for her pistol. For a moment or two there was silence.
Then someone tapped gently.

The tapping went on for half a minute; then followed silence again.
‘Lizabeth stole across the kitchen, pistol in hand, laid her ear
against the board, and listened.

Yes, assuredly there was someone outside. She could catch the sound of
breathing, and the shuffling of a heavy boot on the door-slate. And now
a pair of knuckles repeated the tapping, more imperiously.

“Who’s there?”

A man’s voice, thick and husky, made some indistinct reply.

‘Lizabeth fixed the cap more securely on her pistol, and called again–

“Who’s there?”

“What the devil–” began the voice.

‘Lizabeth shot back the bolt and lifted the latch.

“If you’d said at once ’twas William come back, you’d ha’ been let in
sooner,” she said quietly.

A thin puff of rain floated against her face as the door opened, and a
tall soldier stepped out of the darkness into the glow of the warm
kitchen.

“Well, this here’s a queer home-coming. Why, hullo, ‘Lizabeth–with a
pistol in your hand, too! Do you shoot the fatted calf in these parts
now? What’s the meaning of it?”

The overcoat of cinder grey that covered his scarlet tunic was powdered
with beads of moisture; his black moustaches were beaded also; his face
was damp, and smeared with the dye that trickled from his sodden cap.
As he stood there and shook himself, the rain ran down and formed small
pools upon the slates around his muddy boots.

He was a handsome fellow, in a florid, animal fashion; well-set, with
black curls, dark eyes that yet contrived to be exceedingly shallow, and
as sanguine a pair of cheeks as one could wish to see. It seemed to
‘Lizabeth that the red of his complexion had deepened since she saw him
last, while the white had taken a tinge of yellow, reminding her of the
prize beef at the Christmas market last week. Somehow she could find
nothing to say.

“The old man’s in bed, I reckon. I saw the light in his window.”

“You’ve had a wet tramp of it,” was all she found to reply, though aware
that the speech was inconsequent and trivial.

“Damnably. Left the coach at Fiddler’s Cross, and trudged down across
the fields. We were soaked enough on the coach, though, and couldn’t
get much worse.”

“We?”

“Why, you don’t suppose I was the only passenger by the coach, eh?” he
put in quickly.

“No, I forgot.”

There was an awkward silence, and William’s eyes travelled round the
kitchen till they lit on the kettle standing by the hearthstone.
“Got any rum in the cupboard?” While she was getting it out, he took
off his cap and great-coat, hung them up behind the door, and, pulling
the small table close to the fire, sat beside it, toasting his knees.
‘Lizabeth set bottle and glass before him, and stood watching as he
mixed the stuff.

“So you’re only a private.”

William set down the kettle with some violence.

“You still keep a cursedly rough tongue, I notice.”

“An’ you’ve been a soldier five year. I reckoned you’d be a sergeant at
least,” she pursued simply, with her eyes on his undecorated sleeve.

William took a gulp.

“How do you know I’ve not been a sergeant?”

“Then you’ve been degraded. I’m main sorry for that.”

“Look here, you hush up! Damn it! there’s girls enough have fancied
this coat, though it ain’t but a private’s; and that’s enough for you, I
take it.”

“It’s handsome.”

“There, that’ll do. I do believe you’re spiteful because I didn’t offer
to kiss you when I came in. Here, Cousin ‘Lizabeth,” he exclaimed,
starting up, “I’ll be sworn for all your tongue you’re the prettiest
maid I’ve seen this five year. Give me a kiss.”

“Don’t, William!”

Such passionate entreaty vibrated in her voice that William, who was
advancing, stopped for a second to stare. Then, with a laugh, he had
caught and kissed her loudly.

Her cheeks were flaming when she broke free.

William turned, emptied his glass at a gulp, and began to mix a second.

“There, there; you never look so well as when you’re angered,
‘Lizabeth.”

“‘Twas a coward’s trick,” she panted.

“Christmas-time, you spitfire. So you ain’t married yet? Lord!
I don’t wonder they fight shy of you; you’d be a handful, my vixen, for
any man to tame. How’s the old man?”

“He’ll never be better.”

“Like enough at his age. Is he hard set against me?”

“We’ve never spoke of you for years now, till to-night.”

“To-night? That’s queer. I’ve a mind to tip up a stave to let him know
I’m about. I will, too. Let me see–”

    "When Johnny comes marching home again,
                Hooray! Hoo--"

“Don’t, don’t! Oh, why did you come back to-night, of all nights?”

“And why the devil not to-night so well as any other? You’re a
comfortable lot, I must say! Maybe you’d like common metre better:–

    "Within my fathers house
      The blessed sit at meat.
    Whilst I my belly stay
      With husks the swine did eat."

–”Why shouldn’t I wake the old man? I’ve done naught that I’m ashamed
of.”

“It don’t seem you’re improved by soldiering.”

“Improved? I’ve seen life.” William drained his glass.

“An’ got degraded.”

“Burn your tongue! I’m going to see him.” He rose and made towards the
door. ‘Lizabeth stepped before him.

“Hush! You mustn’t.”

“‘Mustn’t?’ That’s a bold word.”

“Well, then–’can’t.’ Sit down, I tell you.”

“Hullo! Ain’t you coming the mistress pretty free in this house?
Stand aside. I’ve got something to tell him–something that won’t wait.
Stand aside, you she-cat!”

He pushed by her roughly, but she held on to his sleeve.

“It must wait. Listen to me.”

“I won’t.”

“You shall. He’s dead.”

“Dead!“ He reeled back to the table and poured out another glassful
with a shaking hand. ‘Lizabeth noticed that this time he added no
water.

“He died to-night,” she explained; “but he’s been ailin’ for a year
past, an’ took to his bed back in October.”

William’s face was still pallid; but he merely stammered–

“Things happen queerly. I’ll go up and see him; I’m master here now.
You can’t say aught to that. By the Lord! but I can buy myself out–I’m
sick of soldiering–and we’ll settle down here and be comfortable.”

“We?”

His foot was on the stair by this time. He turned and nodded.

“Yes, we. It ain’t a bad game being mistress o’ this house.
Eh, Cousin ‘Lizabeth?”

She turned her hot face to the flame, without reply; and he went on his
way up the stairs.

‘Lizabeth sat for a while staring into the wood embers with shaded eyes.
Whatever the path by which her reflections travelled, it led in the end
to the kettle. She remembered that the tea was still to make, and, on
stooping to set the kettle back upon the logs, found it emptied by
William’s potations. Donning her stout shoes and pattens, and slipping
a shawl over her head, she reached down the lantern from its peg, lit
it, and went out to fill the kettle at the spring.

It was pitch-dark; the rain was still falling, and as she crossed the
yard the sodden straw squeaked beneath her tread. The yard had been
fashioned generations since, by levelling back from the house to the
natural rock of the hill-side, and connecting the two on the right by
cow-house and stable, with an upper storey for barn and granary, on the
left by a low wall, where, through a rough gate, the cart-track from the
valley found its entrance. Against the further end of this wall leant
an open cart-shed; and within three paces of it a perpetual spring of
water gushing down the rock was caught and arrested for a while in a
stone trough before it hurried out by a side gutter, and so down to join
the trout-stream in the valley below. The spring first came to light
half-way down the rock’s face. Overhead its point of emergence was
curtained by a network of roots pushed out by the trees above and
sprawling over the lip in helpless search for soil.

‘Lizabeth’s lantern threw a flare of yellow on these and on the bubbling
water as she filled her kettle. She was turning to go when a sound
arrested her.

It was the sound of a suppressed sob, and seemed to issue from the
cart-shed. ‘Lizabeth turned quickly and held up her lantern. Under the
shed, and barely four paces from her, sat a woman.

The woman was perched against the shaft of a hay-waggon, with her feet
resting on a mud-soiled carpet-bag. She made but a poor appealing
figure, tricked out in odds and ends of incongruous finery, with a
bonnet, once smart, hanging limply forward over a pair of
light-coloured eyes and a very lachrymose face. The ambition of the
stranger’s toilet, which ran riot in cheap jewellery, formed so odd a
contrast with her sorry posture that ‘Lizabeth, for all her wonder, felt
inclined to smile.

“What’s your business here?”

“Oh, tell me,” whimpered the woman, “what’s he doing all this time?
Won’t his father see me? He don’t intend to leave me here all night,
surely, in this bitter cold, with nothing to eat, and my gown ruined!”

“He?” ‘Lizabeth’s attitude stiffened with suspicion of the truth.

“William, I mean; an’ a sorry day it was I agreed to come.”

“William?”

“My husband. I’m Mrs. William Transom.”

“Come along to the house.” ‘Lizabeth turned abruptly and led the way.

Mrs. William Transom gathered up her carpet-bag and bedraggled skirts
and followed, sobbing still, but in diminuendo. Inside the kitchen
‘Lizabeth faced round on her again.

“So you’m William’s wife.”

“I am; an’ small comfort to say so, seein’ this is how I’m served.
Reely, now, I’m not fit to be seen.”

“Bless the woman, who cares here what you look like? Take off those
fal-lals, an’ sit in your petticoat by the fire, here; you ain’t wet
through–on’y your feet; and here’s a dry pair o’ stockings, if you’ve
none i’ the bag. You must be possessed, to come trampin’ over High
Compton in them gingerbread things.” She pointed scornfully at the
stranger’s boots.

Mrs. William Transom, finding her notions of gentility thus ridiculed,
acquiesced.

“An’ now,” resumed ‘Lizabeth, when her visitor was seated by the fire
pulling off her damp stockings, “there’s rum an’ there’s tea.
Which will you take to warm yoursel’?”

Mrs. William elected to take rum; and ‘Lizabeth noted that she helped
herself with freedom. She made no comment, however, but set about
making tea for herself; and, then, drawing up her chair to the table,
leant her chin on her hand and intently regarded her visitor.

“Where’s William?” inquired Mrs. Transom.

“Up-stairs.”

“Askin’ his father’s pardon?”

“Well,” ‘Lizabeth grimly admitted, “that’s like enough; but you needn’t
fret about them.”

Mrs. William showed no disposition to fret. On the contrary, under the
influence of the rum she became weakly jovial and a trifle garrulous–
confiding to ‘Lizabeth that, though married to William for four years,
she had hitherto been blessed with no children; that they lived in
barracks, which she disliked, but put up with because she doted on a red
coat; that William had always been meaning to tell his father, but
feared to anger him, “because, my dear,” she frankly explained,
“I was once connected with the stage”–a form of speech behind which
‘Lizabeth did not pry; that, a fortnight before Christmas, William had
made up his mind at last, “‘for,’ as he said to me, ‘the old man must be
nearin’ his end, and then the farm’ll be mine by rights;’” that he had
obtained his furlough two days back, and come by coach all the way to
this doleful spot–for doleful she must call it, though she would have
to live there some day–with no shops nor theayters, of which last it
appeared Mrs. Transom was inordinately fond. Her chatter was
interrupted at length with some abruptness.

“I suppose,” said ‘Lizabeth meditatively, “you was pretty, once.”

Mrs. Transom, with her hand on the bottle, stared, and then tittered.

“Lud! my dear, you ain’t over-complimentary. Yes, pretty I was, though
I say it.”

“We ain’t neither of us pretty now–you especially.”

“I’d a knack o’ dressin’,” pursued the egregious Mrs. Transom, “an’ nice
eyes an’ hair. ‘Why, Maria, darlin’,’ said William one day, when him
an’ me was keepin’ company, ‘I believe you could sit on that hair o’
yours, I do reely.’ ‘Go along, you silly!’ I said, ‘to be sure I can.’”

“He called you darling?”

“Why, in course. H’ain’t you never had a young man?”

‘Lizabeth brushed aside the question by another.

“Do you love him? I mean so that–that you could lie down and let him
tramp the life out o’ you?”

“Good Lord, girl, what questions you do ask! Why, so-so, o’ course,
like other married women. He’s wild at times, but I shut my eyes; an’
he hav’n struck me this year past. I wonder what he can be doin’ all
this time.”

“Come and see.”

‘Lizabeth rose. Her contempt of this foolish, faded creature recoiled
upon herself, until she could bear to sit still no longer.
With William’s wife at her heels, she mounted the stair, their shoeless
feet making no sound. The door of the old man’s bed-room stood ajar,
and a faint ray of light stole out upon the landing. ‘Lizabeth looked
into the room, and then, with a quick impulse, darted in front of her
companion.

It was too late. Mrs. Transom was already at her shoulder, and the eyes
of the two women rested on the sorry spectacle before them.

Candle in hand, the prodigal was kneeling by the dead man’s bed. He was
not praying, however; but had his head well buried in the oaken chest,
among the papers of which he was cautiously prying.

The faint squeal that broke from his wife’s lips sufficed to startle
him. He dropped the lid with a crash, turned sharply round, and
scrambled to his feet. His look embraced the two women in one brief
flicker, and then rested on the blazing eyes of ‘Lizabeth.

“You mean hound!” said she, very slowly.

He winced uneasily, and began to bluster:

“Curse you! What do you mean by sneaking upon a man like this?”

“A man!” echoed ‘Lizabeth. “Man, then, if you will–couldn’t you wait
till your father was cold, but must needs be groping under his pillow
for the key of that chest? You woman, there–you wife of this man–I’m
main grieved you should ha’ seen this. Lord knows I had the will to
hide it!”

The wife, who had sunk into the nearest chair, and lay there huddled
like a half-empty bag, answered with a whimper.

“Stop that whining!” roared William, turning upon her, “or I’ll break
every bone in your skin.”

“Fie on you, man! Why, she tells me you haven’t struck her for a whole
year,” put in ‘Lizabeth, immeasurably scornful.

“So, cousin, you’ve found out what I meant by ‘we.’ Lord! you fancied
you was the one as was goin’ to settle down wi’ me an’ be comfortable,
eh? You’re jilted, my girl, an’ this is how you vent your jealousy.
You played your hand well; you’ve turned us out. It’s a pity–eh?–you
didn’t score this last trick.”

“What do you mean?” The innuendo at the end diverted her wrath at the
man’s hateful coarseness.

“Mean? Oh, o’ course, you’re innocent as a lamb! Mean? Why, look
here.”

He opened the chest again, and, drawing out a scrap of folded foolscap,
began to read :–

“I, Ebenezer Transom, of Compton Burrows, in the parish of
Compton, yeoman, being of sound wit and health, and willing, though
a sinner, to give my account to God, do hereby make my last will and
testament.”

“My house, lands, and farm of Compton Burrows, together with every
stick that I own, I hereby (for her good care of me) give and
bequeath to Elizabeth Rundle, my dead sister’s child“

–”Let be, I tell you!”

But ‘Lizabeth had snatched the paper from him. For a moment the devil in
his eye seemed to meditate violence. But he thought better of it; and
when she asked for the candle held it beside her as she read on slowly.

“ . . . to Elizabeth Rundle, my dead sister’s child, desiring
that she may marry and bequeath the same to the heirs of her body;
less the sum of one shilling sterling, which I command to be sent
to my only surviving son William–“

“You needn’t go on,” growled William.

“ . . . because he’s a bad lot, and he may so well know I think
so. And to this I set my hand, this 17th day of September, 1856.“

“Signed“
“Ebenezer Transom.“

“Witnessed by“
“John Hooper.“
“Peter Tregaskis.“

The document was in the old man’s handwriting, and clearly of his
composition. But it was plain enough, and the signatures genuine.
‘Lizabeth’s hand dropped.

“I never knew a word o’ this, William,” she said humbly.

Mrs. Transom broke into an incredulous titter.

“Ugh! get along, you designer!”

“William,” appealed ‘Lizabeth, “I’ve never had no thought o’ robbin’
you.”

‘Lizabeth had definite notions of right and wrong, and this
disinheritance of William struck her conservative mind as a violation of
Nature’s laws.

William’s silence was his wife’s opportunity.

“Robbery’s the word, you baggage! You thought to buy him wi’ your
ill-got gains. Ugh! go along wi’ you!”

‘Lizabeth threw a desperate look towards the cause of this trouble–the
pale mask lying on the pillows. Finding no help, she turned to William
again–

“You believe I meant to rob you?”

Meeting her eyes, William bent his own on the floor, and lied.

“I reckon you meant to buy me, Cousin ‘Lizabeth.”

His wife tittered spitefully.

“Woman!” cried the girl, lapping up her timid merriment in a flame of
wrath. “Woman, listen to me. Time was I loved that man o’ your’n; time
was he swore I was all to him. He was a liar from his birth. It’s your
natur’ to think I’m jealous; a better woman would know I’m sick–sick
wi’ shame an’ scorn o’ mysel’. That man, there, has kissed me, oft’n
an’ oft’n–kissed me ‘pon the mouth. Bein’ what you are, you can’t
understand how those kisses taste now, when I look at you.”

“Well, I’m sure!”

“Hold your blasted tongue!” roared William. Mrs. Transom collapsed.

“Give me the candle,” ‘Lizabeth commanded. “Look here–”

She held the corner of the will to the flame, and watched it run up at
the edge and wrap the whole in fire. The paper dropped from her hand to
the bare boards, and with a dying flicker was consumed. The charred
flakes drifted idly across the floor, stopped, and drifted again.
In dead silence she looked up.

Mrs. Transom’s watery eyes were open to their fullest. ‘Lizabeth turned
to William and found him regarding her with a curious frown.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” he asked hoarsely.

‘Lizabeth laughed a trifle wildly.

“I reckon I’ve made reparation.”

“There was no call–” began William.

“You fool–’twas to myself! An’ now,” she added quietly, “I’ll pick
up my things and tramp down to Hooper’s Farm; they’ll give me a place, I
know, an’ be glad o’ the chance. They’ll be sittin’ up to-night, bein’
Christmas time. Good-night, William!”

She moved to go; but, recollecting herself, turned at the door, and,
stepping up to the bed, bent and kissed the dead man’s forehead.
Then she was gone.

It was the woman who broke the silence that followed with a base speech.

“Well! To think she’d lose her head like that when she found you wasn’t
to be had!”

“Shut up!” said William savagely; “an’ listen to this: If you was to
die to-night I’d marry ‘Lizabeth next week.”

Time passed. The old man was buried, and Mr. and Mrs. Transom took
possession at Compton Burrows and reigned in his stead. ‘Lizabeth dwelt
a mile or so down the valley with the Hoopers, who, as she had said,
were thankful enough to get her services, for Mrs. Hooper was well up in
years, and gladly resigned the dairy work to a girl who, as she told her
husband, was of good haveage, and worth her keep a dozen times over.
So ‘Lizabeth had settled down in her new home, and closed her heart and
shut its clasps tight.

She never met William to speak to. Now and then she caught sight of him
as he rode past on horseback, on his way to market or to the “Compton
Arms,” where he spent more time and money than was good for him. He had
bought himself out of the army, of course; but he retained his barrack
tales and his air of having seen life. These, backed up with a baritone
voice and a largehandedness in standing treat, made him popular in the
bar parlour. Meanwhile, Mrs. Transom, up at Compton Burrows–perhaps
because she missed her “theayters”–sickened and began to pine; and one
January afternoon, little more than a year after the home-coming,
‘Lizabeth, standing in the dairy by her cream-pans, heard that she was
dead.

“Poor soul,” she said; “but she looked a sickly one.” That was all.
She herself wondered that the news should affect her so little.

“I reckon,” said Mrs. Hooper with meaning, “William will soon be lookin’
round for another wife.”

‘Lizabeth went quietly on with her skimming.

It was just five months after this, on a warm June morning, that William
rode down the valley, and, dismounting by Farmer Hooper’s, hitched his
bridle over the garden gate, and entered. ‘Lizabeth was in the garden;
he could see her print sun-bonnet moving between the rows of peas.
She turned as he approached, dropped a pod into her basket, and held out
her hand.

“Good day, William.” Her voice was quite friendly.

William had something to say, and ‘Lizabeth quickly guessed what it was.

“I thought I’d drop in an’ see how you was gettin’ on; for it’s main
lonely up at Compton Burrows since the missus was took.”

“I daresay.”

“An’ I’d a matter on my mind to tell you,” he pursued, encouraged to
find she harboured no malice. “It’s troubled me, since, that way you
burnt the will, an’ us turnin’ you out; for in a way the place belonged
to you. The old man meant it, anyhow.”

“Well,” said ‘Lizabeth, setting down her basket, and looking him full in
the eyes.

“Well, I reckon we might set matters square, you an’ me, ‘Lizabeth, by
marryin’ an’ settlin’ down comfortable. I’ve no children to pester you,
an’ you’re young yet to be givin’ up thoughts o’ marriage. What do ‘ee
say, cousin?”

‘Lizabeth picked a full pod from the bush beside her, and began shelling
the peas, one by one, into her hand. Her face was cool and
contemplative.

“‘Tis eight years ago, William, since last you asked me. Ain’t that
so?” she asked absently.

“Come, Cousin, let bygones be, and tell me; shall it be, my dear?”

“No, William,” she answered; “’tis too late an hour to ask me now. I
thank you, but it can’t be.” She passed the peas slowly to and fro in
her fingers.

“But why, ‘Lizabeth?” he urged; “you was fond o’ me once. Come, girl,
don’t stand in your own light through a hit o’ pique.”

“It’s not that,” she explained; “it’s that I’ve found myself out–an’
you. You’ve humbled my pride too sorely.”

“You’re thinking o’ Maria.”

“Partly, maybe; but it don’t become us to talk o’ one that’s dead.
You’ve got my answer, William, and don’t ask me again. I loved you
once, but now I’m only weary when I think o’t. You wouldn’t understand
me if I tried to tell you.”

She held out her hand. William took it.

“You’re a great fool, ‘Lizabeth.”

“Good-bye, William.”

She took up her basket and walked slowly back to the house; William
watched her for a moment or two, swore, and returned to his horse.
He did not ride home wards, but down the valley, where he spent the day
at the “Compton Arms.” When he returned home, which was not before
midnight, he was boisterously drunk.

Now it so happened that when William dismounted at the gate Mrs. Hooper
had spied him from her bedroom window, and, guessing his errand, had
stolen down on the other side of the garden wall parallel with which the
peas were planted. Thus sheltered, she contrived to hear every word of
the foregoing conversation, and repeated it to her good man that very
night.

“An’ I reckon William said true,” she wound up. “If ‘Lizabeth don’t
know which side her bread’s buttered she’s no better nor a fool–an’
William’s another.”

“I dunno,” said the farmer; “it’s a queer business, an’ I don’t fairly
see my way about in it. I’m main puzzled what can ha’ become o’ that
will I witnessed for th’ old man.”

“She’s a fool, I say.”

“Well, well; if she didn’t want the man I reckon she knows best. He put
it fairly to her.”

“That’s just it, you ninny!” interrupted his wiser wife; “I gave William
credit for more sense. Put it fairly, indeed! If he’d said nothin’,
but just caught her in his arms, an’ clipped an’ kissed her, she
couldn’t ha’ stood out. But he’s lost his chance, an’ now she’ll never
marry.”

And it was as she said.

A rough track–something between a footpath and a water course–led down
the mountain-side through groves of evergreen oak, and reached the Plain
of Jezreel at the point where the road from Samaria and the south
divided into two–its main stem still climbing due north towards
Nazareth, while the branch bent back eastward and by south across the
flat, arable country to join the Carmel road at Megiddo.

An old man came painfully down the mountain-track. He wore a white
burnoos, and a brown garment of camel’s hair, with a leathern belt that
girt it high about his bare legs. He carried a staff, and tapped the
ground carefully before planting his feet. It was the time of barley
harvest, and a scorching afternoon. On the burnt plain below, the road
to Megiddo shone and quivered in the heat. But he could not see it.
Cataract veiled his eyes and blurred the whole landscape for them.

The track now wound about a foot-hill that broke away in a sharp slope
on his right and plunged to a stony ravine. Once or twice he paused on
its edge and peered downward, as if seeking for a landmark. He was
leaning forward to peer again, but suddenly straightened his body and
listened.

Far down in the valley a solitary dog howled. But the old man’s ear had
caught another sound, that came from the track, not far in front.

Cling–cling–clink! Cling–clink!

It was the sound of hammering; of stone on metal.

Cling–cling–clink!

He stepped forward briskly, rounded an angle of rock, and found himself
face to face with a man–as well as he could see, a tall man–standing
upright by a heap of stones on the left edge of the path.

“May it be well with you, my son: and with every man who repairs a path
for the traveller. But tell me if the way be unsafe hereabouts? For my
eyes are very dim, and it is now many years since last I came over the
hills to Shunem.”

The man did not reply.

“–So many years that for nigh upon an hour I have been saying, ‘Surely
here should Shunem come in sight–or here–its white walls among the
oaks below–the house of Miriam of Shunem’. But I forget the curtain on
my eyes, and the oaks will have grown tall.”

Still there came no answer. Slightly nettled, the old man went on–

“My son, it is said ‘To return a word before hearing the matter is
folly.’ But also, ‘Every man shall kiss the lips of him who answereth
fit words.’ And further, ‘To the aged every stranger shall be a staff,
nor shall he twice inquire his way.’ Though I may not scan thy face,
thou scannest mine; and I, who now am blind, have been a seer in
Israel.”

As he ceased, another figure–a woman’s–stepped out, as it seemed to
him, from behind the man; stepped forward and touched him on the arm.

“Hail, then, Elisha, son of Shaphat!”

“Thou knowest? . . .”

“Who better than Miriam of Shunem? Put near thy face and look.”

“My eyes are very dim.”

“And the oaks are higher than Shunem. My face has changed: my voice
also.”

“For the moment it was strange to me. As I came along I was reckoning
thy years at three-score.”

“Mayst add five.”

“We may not complain. And thy son, how fares he?”

“That is he, behind us. He is a good son, and leaves his elders to
speak first. If we sit awhile and talk he will wait for us.”

“And thy house and the farm-steading?”

The woman threw a glance down towards the valley, and answered quickly–

“My master, shall we not sit awhile? The track here looks towards the
plain. Sit, and through my eyes thou shalt see again distant Carmel and
the fields between that used so to delight thee. Ah! not there!”

The old man had made as if to seat himself on one of the larger stones
on the edge of the heap. But she prevented him quickly; was gone for a
moment; and returned, rolling a moss-covered boulder to the right-hand
of the path. The prophet sat himself down on this, and she on the
ground at his feet.

“Just here, from my window below, I saw thee coming down the mountain
with Gehazi, thy servant, on that day when it was promised to me that I
should bear a son.”

He nodded.

“For as often as we passed by,” he said, “we found food and a little
room prepared upon the wall. ‘Thou hast been careful for us,’ said I,
‘with all this care. What is to be done for thee? Shall I speak to the
King for thee, or to the captain of the host?’ Thine answer was,
‘I dwell in Shunem, among my own people.’”

“There is no greener spot in Israel.”

“‘But,’ said my servant Gehazi, ‘Every spot is greener where a child
plays.’ Therefore this child was promised thee.”

She said, “But once a year the plain is yellow and not green; yellow
away to the foot of Carmel; and that is in this season of the barley
harvest. It was on such a day as this that my son fell in the field
among the reapers, and his father brought him in and set him on my
knees. On such a day as this I left him dead, and saddled the ass and
rode between the same yellow fields to Megiddo, and thence towards
Carmel, seeking thee. See the white road winding, and the long blue
chine yonder, by the sea. By and by, when the sun sinks over it, the
blue chine and the oaks beneath will turn to one dark colour; and that
will be the hour that I met thee on the slope, and lighted off the ass
and caught thee by the feet. As yet it is all parched fields and sky of
brass and a white road running endless–endless.”

“But what are these black shadows that pass between me and the sun?”

“They are crows, my master.”

“What should they do here in these numbers?”

The woman rose and flung a stone at the birds. Seating herself again,
she said–

“Below, the reapers narrow the circle of the corn; and there are conies
within the circle. The kites and crows know it.”

“But that day of which thou hast spoken–it ended in gladness.
The Lord restored thy son to thee.”

“Thou rather, man of God.”

“My daughter, His mercy was very great upon thee. Speak no blasphemy,
thou of all women.”

“The Lord had denied me a son; but thou persuadedst Him, and He gave me
one. Again, the Lord had taken my child in the harvest-field, but on
thy wrestling gave him back. And again the Lord meditated to take my
child by famine, but at thy warning I arose and conveyed him into the
land of the Philistines, nor returned to Shunem till seven years’ end.
My master, thou art a prophet in Israel, but I am thinking–”

She broke off, rose, and flung another stone at the birds.

“My daughter, think not slightly of God’s wisdom.”

“Nay, man of God, I am thinking that God was wiser than thou or I.”

The old prophet rose from his stone. His dull eyes tried to read her
face. She touched his hand.

“Come, and see.”

The figure of the man still stood, three paces behind them, upright
against the hillside, as when Elisha had first turned the corner and
come upon him. But now, led by Miriam, the prophet drew quite close and
peered. Dimly, and then less dimly, he discerned first that the head
had fallen forward on the breast, and that the hair upon the scalp was
caked in dry blood; next, that the figure did not stand of its own will
at all, but was held upright to a stout post by an iron ring about the
neck and a rope about the waist. He put out a finger and touched the
face. It was cold.

“Thy son?”

“They stoned him with these stones. His wife stood by.”

“The Syrians?”

“The Syrians. They went northward before noon, taking her. The plain
is otherwise burnt than on the day when I sought across it for his sake
to Carmel.”

“Well did King David entreat the hand of the Lord rather than the hand
of man. I had not heard of thy son’s marrying.”

“Five years ago he went down with a gift to Philistia, to them that
sheltered us in the famine. He brought back this woman.”

“She betrayed him?”

“He heard her speak with a Syrian, and fled up the hill. From the
little window in the wall–see, it smokes yet–she called and pointed
after him. And they ran and overtook him. With this iron they fastened
him, and with these stones they stoned him. Man of God, I am thinking
that God was wiser than thou or I.”

The old man stood musing, and touched the heap of stones gently, stone
after stone, with the end of his staff.

“He was wiser.”

Cling–cling–clink!

Miriam had taken up a stone, and with it was hammering feebly,
impotently, upon the rivets in the iron band.

As the sun dropped below Carmel the prophet cast down his staff and
stretched out two groping hands to help her.

A Narrative of the sufferings of Mr. Obed Lanyon, of Vellingey-Saint
Agnes, Cornwall; Margit Lanyon, his wife; and seventeen persons (mostly
Americans) shipwrecked among the Quinaiult Tribes of the N.W. Coast of
America, in the winter of 1807-8. With some remarkable Experiences of
the said Margit Lanyon, formerly Pedersen. Written by the Survivor,
Edom Lanyon, sometime a Commander in the service of the Honourable East
India Company.

My twin brother Obed and I were born on the 21st of March, 1759
(he being the elder by a few minutes), at Vellingey-St. Agnes, or
St. Ann’s, a farm on the north coast of Cornwall, owned and cultivated
by our father Renatus Lanyon. Our mother was a Falmouth woman,
daughter of a ship’s captain of that port: and I suppose it was this
inclined us to a sea-faring life. At any rate, soon after our fifteenth
birthday we sailed (rather against our father’s wish) on a short
coasting voyage with our grandfather–whose name was William Dustow.

A second voyage in the early summer of 1776 took us as far as the
Thames. It happened that the famous Captain Cook was just then
recruiting for his third and (as it proved) his last voyage of
discovery. This set us talking and planning, and the end was that we
stole ashore and offered ourselves. Obed had the luck to be picked.
Though very like in face, I was already the taller by two inches; and no
doubt the Captain judged I had outgrown my strength. But it surprised
me to be rejected when Obed was taken; and disappointed me more: for,
letting alone the prospect of the voyage, we two (as twins, and our
parents’ only children) were fond of each other out of the common
degree, and had never thought to be separated.

To speak first of Obed:–Captain Cook put some questions, and finding
that we were under our grandfather’s care, would do nothing without his
consent. We returned to the ship and confessed to the old man, who
pretended to be much annoyed. But next day he put on his best clothes
and went in search of the great seaman, to Whitehall; and so the matter
was arranged. Obed sailed in July on board the Discovery; shared the
dangers of that voyage, in which the ships followed up the N.W. Coast of
America and pushed into Behring’s Strait beyond the 70th parallel; was a
witness, on February 4th, 1779, of his commander’s tragical end; and
returned to England in October, 1780. Eleven years later he made
another voyage to the same N.W. American Coast; this time as master’s
mate under Vancouver, who had kept an interest in him since they sailed
together under Cook, and thought highly of him as a practical navigator
and draughtsman. It was my brother who, under Vancouver, drew up the
first chart of the Straits of Fuca, which Cook had missed: and I have
been told (by a Mr. G–, a clerk to the Admiralty) that on his return he
stood well for a lieutenant’s commission–the rule of the Service being
stretched now and then to favour these circumnavigating seamen, many of
whom worked their way aft from the hawse-hole to the quarter deck.
But my father and mother dying just then, and the former having slipped
a particular request into his will, Obed threw up the sea and settled
down in Vellingey as a quiet yeoman farmer.

Meanwhile, in 1779, I had entered the sea service of the Honourable East
India Company; and with passable good fortune had risen in it pretty
fast. Enough to say, that by the spring of 1796 I was looking forward
to the command of a ship. Just then my fortune deserted me. In a
sudden fear of French invasion, our Government bought the four new ships
which the Company had building (and a bad bargain they proved).
This put a stop for the time to all chance of promotion; and a sharp
attack of jaundice falling on top of my disappointments, I took the
usual decrease of pay and the Board’s promise to remember my services on
a proper occasion, and hauled ashore to Vellingey for a holiday and a
thorough refit of health.

I believe that the eight or nine following months which Obed and I spent
together were the happiest in our two lives. He was glad enough to
shoulder off the small business of the farm and turn–as I have seen so
many men play, in a manner, at the professions they have given over–to
his favourite amusement of sounding the coast of Vellingey and
correcting the printed charts. He kept a small lugger mainly for this
purpose, and plied her so briskly that he promised to know the
sea-bottom between Kelsey Head and Godrevy Rock better than his own
fields. As for me, after years of salt water and stumping decks, I
asked nothing better than to steer a plough and smell broken soil, and
drowse after supper in an armchair, with good tobacco and Obed for
company.

In this way we passed the winter of 1796-7; until the lambing season,
which fell midway in February. The year opened wet, with fresh south
westerly winds, which in the second week chopped suddenly; and for four
days a continuous freezing gale blew on us from the N.W. It was then
that the lambs began to drop; and for three nights I exchanged pipe and
fireside for a lantern and the lower corner of Friar’s Parc at the back
of the towans, where the ewes were gathered in the lew.[1] They kept us
so busy that for forty-eight hours we neither changed our clothes (at
least, I did not) nor sat down to a meal. The sand about Vellingey is
always driving, more or less; and the gale so mixed it up with fine snow
that we made our journeys to and from the house, so to speak, blindfold,
and took our chance of the drifts. But the evening of the 11th promised
better. The wind dropped, and in an hour fell to a flat calm: then,
after another hour, began to draw easily off shore–the draught itself
being less noticeable than the way in which it smoothed down the heavy
sea running. Though the cold did not lift, the weather grew tolerable
once more: and each time I crossed the townplace[2] with a lamb in my
arms, I heard the surf running lower and lower in the porth below
Vellingey.

By day-break (the 12th) it was fallen to nothing: the sky still holding
snow, but sky and sea the same colour; a heavy blueish grey, like steel.
I was coming over the towans, just then, with a lamb under either arm
(making twelve, that night) when I happened to look seaward, and there
saw a boat tossing, about a gunshot from the shore.

She was a long boat, painted white; very low in the sheer, and curved at
stem and stern like a Norwegian; her stem rounded off without a transom,
and scarcely bluffer than her bows. She carried a mast, stepped right
forward; but no sail. She was full of people. I counted five sitting,
all white with snow–one by the mast, three amidships, and one in the
stern sheets, steering. At least, he had a hand on the tiller: but the
people had given over pulling, and the boat without steerage-way was
drifting broadside-on towards the shore with the set of the tide.

While I stood conning her, up at the house the back-door opened, and my
brother stepped out and across the yard to milk the cows. His
milk-pails struck against the door-post, and sounded as clear as bells.
I shouted to him and pointed towards the boat: and after looking a
moment, he set down his pails and started off at a run, down towards the
porth. I then hurried towards the house, where I found Selina, our old
housekeeper, in the kitchen, tending the lambs with warm milk.
Handing the new-comers over to her, I caught up a line and made off
hot-foot after Obed.

At low-water (and the tide had now scarcely an hour to ebb) the sands in
Vellingey Porth measure a good half-mile from the footbridge at its head
to the sea at its base. My legs were longer than Obed’s; but I dare say
he had arrived five minutes ahead of me. He was standing and calling to
the boat’s crew to get out an oar and pull her head-to-sea: for although
the smoothing wind had taken most of the danger out of the breakers,
they were quite able to capsize and roll over any boat that beached
herself in that lubberly fashion.

I ran up panting, and shouted with him–”Pull her round head-to-sea, and
back her in!”

Not a man moved or lifted a hand. The next moment, a wave tilted and
ran a dozen yards with her, but mercifully passed before it broke.
A smaller one curved on the back-draught and splashed in over her
gunwale as she took ground. But what knocked the wind out of our sails
was this–As the first wave canted her up, two men had rolled out of her
like logs; and the others, sitting like logs, had never so much as
stirred to help!

“Good Lord!” I called out, and fumbled with my line. “What’s the
meaning of it?”

“The meaning is,” said Obed, “they’re dead men, every mother’s son.
They’re frozen,” said he: “I’ve seen frozen seamen before now.”

“I’ll have in the boat, anyway,” I said. “Here, catch hold and pay
out!” Running in, I reached her just as she lifted again; and managed
to slew her nose in-shore, but not in time to prevent half-a-hogshead
pouring over her quarter. This wave knocked her broadside-on again, and
the water shipped made her heavier to handle. But by whipping my end of
the line round the thwart in which her mast was stepped, for Obed to
haul upon, and myself heaving at her bows, we fetched her partly round
as she lifted again, and ran her into the second line of breakers, which
were pretty well harmless.

“How many on board?” Obed sang out.

“Five!” called I, having counted them. Up to this I had had enough to
do with the boat; besides looking after myself. For twice the heave had
tilled me up to the armpits, and once lifted me clean off my feet; and I
had no wish to try swimming in my sea-boots. “Five,” said I; “and two
overboard–that makes seven. Come and look here!”

“Tend to the boat first,” he said. “I’ve seen frozen seamen.”

“You never saw the likes of this,” I answered. So he ran in beside me.

The boat had her name (or that of the ship she belonged to) painted in
yellow and black on the gunwale strake by her port quarter–
“MARGIT PEDERSEN, BERGEN”: but by their faces we could not miss knowing
to what country the poor creatures belonged. They were–

1. A tall man, under middle age; seated by the mast and leaning
against it (his right arm frozen to it, in fact, from the elbow up)
with his back towards the bows. The snow was heaped on his head and
shoulders like a double cape. This one had no hair on his face; and
his complexion being very fresh and pink, and his eyes wide open, it
was hard to believe him dead. Indeed, while getting in the boat,
I had to speak to him twice, to make sure.

2. A much older man, and shorter, with a rough grey beard. He sat
in the stern sheets, with his right hand frozen on the tiller.
Our folk had afterwards to unship the tiller when they came to lift
him out: and carried him up to the house still holding it. Later on
we buried it beside him. This man wore a good blue coat and black
breeches; and at first we took him to be the captain. He turned out
to be the mate, Knud Lote, who had put on his best clothes when it
came to leaving the ship. His eyes were screwed up, and the brine
had frozen over them, like a glaze, or a big pair of spectacles.

3. Against his knee rested the head of a third man–one of the
three I had first seen sitting amidships. When the other two
toppled overboard this one had slid off the thwart and fallen
against the steersman. He was an oldish man, yellow and thin and
marked with the small-pox; the only one in the boat who might have
come from some other country than Norway. His eyes were cast down
in a quiet way, and he seemed to be smiling. He wore a seaman’s
loose frock, ragged breeches, and sea-boots.

4 and 5. Stretched along the bottom-boards lay a tall young man
with straw-coloured hair and beard: and in his arms, tightly
clasped, and wrapped in a shawl and seaman’s jacket, a young woman.
Her arms were about the young man and her face pressed close and
hidden against his side. He must have taken off his jacket to warm
her; for the upper part of his body had no covering but a flannel
shirt and cinglet.

While we stood there the tide drained back, leaving the bows of the boat
high and dry. As I remember, Obed was the first to speak; and he said
“She has beautiful hair.” This was the bare truth: a great lock of it
lay along the bottom-board like a stream of guineas poured out of a
sack. He climbed into the boat and lifted the shawl from her face.

Those neighbours of ours, friends and acquaintances, who afterwards saw
Margit Pedersen at Vellingey, and for whom this account is mainly
written, will not need a description of her. Many disliked her: but
nobody denied that she was a lovely woman; and I am certain that nobody
could see her face and afterwards forget it. It was, then and always,
very pale: but this had nothing to do with ill health. In fact I am not
sure it would have been noticeable but for the warm colour of her hair
and her red lips and (especially) her eyebrows and lashes, of a deep
brown that seemed almost black. Her lips were blue with the cold, just
now: but the contrast between her eyebrows and her pale face and yellow
hair struck me at once and kept me wondering: until Obed startled me by
dropping the shawl and falling on his knees beside her. “Good God,
Dom!” he sang out: “the girl’s alive!”

The next moment, of course, I was as wild as he. “Get her out, then,” I
cried, “and up to the house at once!”

“I can’t loosen the man’s arms!” Though less than a yard apart, we both
shouted at the top of our voices.

“Nonsense!” I answered: but it was true all the same–as I found out
when I stepped in to Obed’s help. “We must carry up the pair as they
are,” I said. “There’s no time to lose.”

We lifted them out, and making a chair of our hands and wrists, carried
them up to Vellingey; leaving the others in the boat, now for an hour
well above reach of the tide. And here I must tell of something that
happened on the way: the first sign of Obed’s madness, as I may call it.
All of a sudden he stopped and panted, from the weight of our load, I
supposed. “Dom,” he said, “I believe that nine men out of ten would
kiss her!”

I told him not to be a fool, and we walked on. In the town-place we
happened on the shepherd, Reuben Santo, and sent him off for help, and
to look after the frozen people in the boat. The sight of us at the
door nearly scared Selina into her grave: but we allowed her no time for
hysterics. We laid the pair on a blanket before the open fire, and very
soon Obed was trying to force some warm milk and brandy between the
girl’s lips. I think she swallowed a little: but the first time she
opened her eyes was when one of the lambs (which everyone had neglected
for twenty minutes or so) tottered across the kitchen on his foolish
legs and began to nuzzle at her face. Obed at the moment was trying to
disengage the dead man’s arms. A thought struck Selina at once.
“Put the lamb close against her heart,” she said. “That’ll warm her
more than any fire.”

So we did, making the lamb lie down close beside her; and it had a
wonderful effect. In less than half-an-hour her pulse grew moderately
firm and she had even contrived to speak a word or two, but in
Norwegian, which none of us understood. Obed by this time had loosened
the dead man’s arms; and we thought it best to get her upstairs to bed
before the full sense of her misfortune should afflict her.
Obed carried her up to the spare-room and there left her to Selina;
while I saddled horse and rode in to Truro, for Doctor Mitchell.

Much of what followed is matter of public knowledge. Our folks carried
the dead Norwegians up to Church-town, including one of the two that had
fallen overboard (the next tide washed him in; the other never came to
land); and there buried them, two days later, in separate graves, but
all close together. The boat being worthless, we sawed it in two just
abaft the mast and set the fore-part over the centre grave, which was
that of Captain Pedersen, the young man we had carried up with Margit.
The mast rotted and fell, some years ago, although carefully stayed: but
the boat, with the names painted on it, remains to this day. Also we
set up a small wooden cross by each man’s grave, with his name upon it.
Margit was able, from our description, to plan out the right name for
each.

On the third day an interpreter came over from Penzance. Margit could
not yet leave her bed: and before he stepped up to question her, I took
him aside and showed a small Norwegian Bible we had found in the pocket
of the seaman’s jacket to which she owed her life. On the first page
was some foreign writing which I could not make out. The interpreter
translated it: first the names “Margit Hansen to Nils Pedersen”: and
after them, this strange verse from the Song of Solomon–strange, I
mean, to find written in such a place–”Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.”

The interpreter, Mr. Scammel, went upstairs, and she told him her story.
“Our vessel,” she said (I give it in brief) “was the Margit Pedersen,
brig. She belonged to me and was called after me. We were bound for
the Tagus with a cargo of salted fish which I had bought at Bergen from
the Lofoden smacks–fish for the Roman Catholics to eat in Lent.
Nils Pedersen, the captain, was my husband: Knud Lote was mate.”
Mr. Scammell having expressed some surprise that so young a man should
have been captain, she explained, “He was twenty-two. I made him
captain. My father and mother died: they had not wished me to marry
him. They were proud. But they left very little money, considering;
and with it I bought the brig and cargo. She was an old craft, half
rotten. We had fair weather, mostly, down the English Channel and
almost to Ushant. There we met a strong southerly gale, and in the
middle of it a pintle of our rudder gave way and the loose rudder
damaged our stern-post. We tried to bear up for Falmouth, but she would
not steer; and we drove up towards the Irish Coast, just missing Scilly.
On the 8th the wind changed to N.W. and increased. That night, as Nils
tried to lay to, she carried away her fore-mast, which had been shaky
for days. She was now leaking fast. At noon on the 9th we managed to
launch a boat, and abandoned her. She sank at four o’clock: we saw her
go down. The weather grew colder, that night. I think it snowed all
the time: and the seas were too heavy to let the boat run. The men
pulled to keep her nose to them and the wind, and so she drifted.
I forget when they gave over pulling. For a night and a day I baled
steadily. After that I lay most of the time in the bottom of the boat.
Our food was almost done. It was very cold. That is all I can
remember.”

And this, I think, was all we ever heard from her. On his return to
Penzance, Mr. Scammell sent me a Norwegian dictionary; and with the help
of it Obed and I soon managed to talk a little with her, in a mixture of
Norwegian and English. But she never wanted to speak of the past, and
fell silent whenever we spoke of it. What astonished me more was that,
though she told us the names of the dead men, she showed no further
interest in them. At first, knowing how weak she was, and fearing to
distress her, I fought shy of the subject; but one day, towards the end
of the third week–she being strong enough to walk a moderate distance–
I plucked up courage and asked if she cared to come with me to the
churchyard. She agreed, and that afternoon, after a heavy shower, we
walked thither together. I feared what effect the first sight of her
husband’s grave might work on her feelings; and all the way kept wishing
that we had omitted to set up the boat and mast. But she looked at them
calmly, and at the graves. “That is good,” she said: “you have done
great kindness to them. I will not come any more.” And so she prepared
to walk away.

I own that this seemed to me unfeeling. Outside the churchyard I pulled
from my pocket the small Bible. “This belongs to you,” I said: “I have
kept it to help me with your language”–but I held it open at the
fly-leaf. She glanced at it, “Oh yes, I gave it to Nils, my husband.
You wish to keep it?”

“You were very fond of him, to judge from this,” I said; and halted,
expecting her to be angry. But she halted too, and said quite coolly–
looking at me straight–”Yes? Oh yes; very much.”

That same evening I spoke to Obed as we sat alone with our pipes.
“I suppose,” said I as carelessly as I could, “Margit Pedersen will be
leaving us before long.” He looked up sharply, and began to shift the
logs on the hearth. “What makes you say so?” he asked. “Well, she will
have friends in Bergen, and business–” “Has she written to her
friends?” he interrupted. “Not to my knowledge: but she won’t be
staying here for ever, I suppose.” “When she chooses to go, she can.
Are you proposing to turn her out? If so, I’d have you to mind that
Vellingey is my house, and I am master here.”

This was an unworthy thing to say, and he said it with a fury that
surprised me. Obed and I had not quarrelled since we were boys. I put
a stopper on my tongue, and went on smoking: and after a while he began
to talk again in his natural way on ordinary matters.

Margit stayed on; and to all appearance our life at Vellingey fell back
into its old groove. As a matter of fact there was all the difference
in the world–a difference felt before it was seen, and not to be summed
up by saying that a woman sat at our table. I believe I may quite
fairly lay the blame on Obed. For the first time in our lives he kept a
part of his mind hidden from me; he made show enough of frankness in his
talk, but I knew him far too well to miss the suspicion behind it. And
his suspicion bred suspicion in me. Yet though I searched, I could find
nothing amiss in his outward bearing. If he were indeed in love with
the girl–her age, she told us, was twenty-one–he gave no sign upon
which one could lay hold. And certainly Margit’s bearing towards us was
cool and friendly and impartial as the strictest could desire. Of the
two, I had, perhaps, more of her company, simply because Obed spent most
of his time in the lugger, while I worked in the fields and within easy
reach of an afternoon’s stroll. Margit would be busy with housework
most of the morning, or in the kitchen, helping Selina–”domineering,”
Selina preferred to call it.

For, whatever our feelings, Selina had set her face against the
new-comer from the first. She started, no doubt, with the old woman’s
whiddle that no good ever comes of a person saved from the sea. But as
time went on she picked up plenty of other reasons for dislike.
Margit took charge from the day she came downstairs, and had a cold way
of seeing that her orders were attended to. With about twenty words of
English she at once gave battle to Selina, who had bullied us two men
from childhood; and routed her. The old woman kept up a running fight
for a week before appealing to Obed, and this delay cost her everything.
Obed flew in a rage that more than equalled her own, and had the
advantage to be unusual and quite unexpected by her. She ran from him
to the kitchen, in tears; and thenceforth was a beaten woman, however
much she might grumble at the “foreigner” and “interloper.”

For me, I will confess, and have done with it, that before a month was
out my interest in this pale foreign woman, who moved about the house so
quietly and surely, had grown to a degree that troubled me. That Obed
had suspected me before he had any cause made it no easier now to play a
concealed game at cross-purposes; and no pleasanter. In the two months
that followed I hated myself pretty often, and at times came near to
despise myself for the thought that before long I might be hating Obed.
This would never have done: and luckily I saw it in time. Towards the
end of June I made application to the Board: and left Vellingey in July,
to sail for Bombay on board the Warren Hastings, in my old capacity of
first mate. My abandoning the field to Obed would deserve some credit,
had Margit ever by word or look given me the slightest reason to hope.
But she had not; indeed I hoped that she had never guessed the state of
my feelings.

Eighteen months passed before I returned to Vellingey–this time on a
short leave. Obed had written constantly and with all the old
familiarity; a good deal concerning Margit–her health, her walks, her
household business–everything, in short, but what I expected and
dreaded to hear. “Come,” I said to myself, “five minutes’ start in life
and eighteen months in courtship is no such bad allowance for Obed.
Perhaps he will allow me now to have my turn.”

I had this thought in my head as I drew near Vellingey in a light gig
hired from the Truro post-master. It was a rainy afternoon in January,
and a boisterous north-wester blew the Atlantic weather in our teeth as
we mounted the rise over Vellingey churchtown. My head being bent down,
I did not observe the figure of a woman coming up the village street,
but looked up on hearing the sound of her clogs close beside the gig.
It was Selina, tearful, carrying a bundle.

“Whatever is the matter?” I asked, on pulling up.

“They’ve turned me to door!” she moaned. “My dear, they’ve turned me to
door!”

She was tramping home to her cousins in St. Day parish. Not another
night would she sleep at Vellingey–to be trampled on. Of course she
accused the “foreign woman “: but I, it seemed, had started the quarrel
this time; or, rather, it started over the preparations for my
home-coming–some trifling matter of cookery. Selina knew my tastes.
Margit professed to know them better. Such are women.

I own that as I sent the poor soul on her way, with a promise that the
gig should carry back her boxes from Vellingey and a secret resolve that
she should return to us within a week, I could not avoid a foolish
pleasure in the thought that Margit deemed my coming of such importance.
Then it occurred to me that her position now as a single woman alone at
Vellingey lay open to scandal. The sooner I tested my growing hopes,
the better.

I did so, the second evening, after supper. Obed had stepped out to
make the round of the farm buildings and lock up. Margit had removed
the white cloth, and was setting the brass candlesticks and tobacco jar
on the uncovered table.

“What is going to happen about Selina?” I asked, from my chair.

Margit set down a candlestick. “Selina has gone,” she said quietly.

“But people will talk, if you stay here alone with us, or with Obed.
You mustn’t mind my saying this.”

“Oh, no. I suppose they will talk.”

I stood up. “I take it,” said I, “you cannot be quite blind to my
feelings, Margit. I came home on purpose to speak to you: but perhaps,
if it had not been for this, I might have put off speaking for some
days. If you care for me at all, though, I think you can answer.
My dear, if you will marry me it will make me a happy man.”

She was fingering the candle-base, just touching the brass with her
finger-tips and withdrawing them gently. She looked up. “I rather
thought,” she said, “you would have spoken last night. Obed asked me
this morning–he gave you that chance: and I have promised to marry
him.”

“Good Lord! but this is a question of loving a man!”

“I have never said that I like you better. I shall make Obed a very
good wife.”

Less than a minute later, Obed came into the room, after slamming the
back-door loudly. He did not look at our faces: but I am sure that he
knew exactly what had happened.

They were married in April, a fortnight after my leaving England on
another voyage. We parted the best of friends; and in the course of the
next seven years I spent most of my holidays with them. No married life
could well be smoother than was Obed’s and Margit’s in all this time.
He worshipped her to fondness; and she, without the least parade of
affection, seemed to make his comfort and well-being the business of her
life. It hardly needs to be said that my unfortunate proposal was
ignored by all of us as a thing that had never happened.

In October, 1802, I reached the height of my ambition, being appointed
to the command of the Company’s ship Macartney, engaged in the China
traffic. I call her the Macartney: but the reader will presently see
that I have reasons for not wishing to make public the actual name of
this vessel, which, however, will be sufficiently familiar to all who
knew me at that time and who have therefore what I may call a private
interest in this narrative. For the same reason I shall say no more of
her than that she was a new ship, Thames-built, and more than commonly
fast; and that I commanded her from October 1802 to June 1806.

She carried passengers, of course: and in the autumn of 1805 it
surprised and delighted me to hear from Obed that he and Margit had
determined on a sea voyage, and wished to book their passages to the
Canton River and back in the Macartney. I had often given this
invitation in jest: but such voyages merely for health and pleasure were
then far from common. Yet there was no single impediment to their
going. They had no children: they were well-to-do: they had now a hind,
or steward (one Stephens), to whose care they might comfortably leave
the farm. To be short, they sailed with me.

On the 2nd of May 1806, the Macartney dropped anchor in the Canton
River after a fast and prosperous voyage. The events I have now to
relate will appear least extraordinary to the reader who best
understands under what conditions the English carry on their trade with
China. Let me say, then, that in its jealousy of us foreign barbarians
the Chinese government confines our ships to the one port of Canton and
reserves the right of nominating such persons as shall be permitted to
trade with us. These Hong merchants (in number less than a dozen) are
each and all responsible to the Emperor for any disturbance that may be
committed by a person belonging to a foreign ship: and they in turn look
for compensation to the European factors. So that, a Chinese mob being
the most insolent in the world, and the spirit of British seamen
proverbial, these factors often find themselves in situations of great
delicacy, and sometimes of more than a little danger.

It happened that on the next day after our arrival a small party of us–
Margit and Obed, the second officer, Mr. Tomlinson, and I–had taken a
short stroll ashore and were returning to the boat, which lay ready by
the landing, manned by six seamen. The coxswain brought the boat
alongside: and I, on the lowest step of the landing-stage, stooped to
hold her steady while Margit embarked. She and Obed waited on the step
next above, with Mr. Tomlinson close behind. A small crowd had followed
us: and just then one dirty Chinaman reached forward and with a word or
two (no doubt indecent) laid his open palm on the back of Margit’s neck.
Quick as thought, she lifted a hand and dealt him a rousing box in the
ear. I sprang up and pushed him back as he recovered. He slipped on
the green ooze of the steps and fell: this was all I saw, for the crowd
made a rush and closed. Obed and Mr. Tomlinson had hurried Margit into
the boat: I leapt after them: and we pushed off under a brisk shower of
dirt and stones. We were soon out of range, and reached the ship
without mishap.

Knowing the nature of a Chinese rabble, I felt glad enough that the
affair had proved no worse; and thought little more of it until early
next morning, when Mr. Findlater, the first officer, came with a puzzled
face and reported that during the night someone had attached a boat,
with a dead Chinaman in it, to the chain of our small bower anchor.

I went on deck at once. A good look at the corpse relieved me: for as
far as my recollection served, it bore no resemblance to the man I had
pushed on the landing. I told off two of the rowers of the previous
day–the two whose position in the bows had given them the best view of
the scuffle–to cut the thing adrift. They did so and came back with
the report that they had never seen the dead man before in their lives.
So I tried to feel easy.

But soon after breakfast, and almost in the full heat of the day, there
came off a galley with two of the Hong merchants and no less a person
than Mr. ‘–’, the Chief of the H.E.I.C.’s factory. He brought serious
news. The boat had drifted up the river and had been recovered by a
crowd of Chinese, who took out the dead man and laid him on the doorstep
of the factory, clamouring that he had been killed, the day before, by
an Englishwoman; and threatening, unless she were given up, to seize the
first supercargo that came out and carry him off to be strangled.

I answered, describing the scuffle and declaring my readiness to swear
that the body bore no resemblance to the fellow whose ear Margit had
boxed. But I knew how little this testimony would avail in a Chinese
court. The two Hong merchants assured me that their brother, the
Macartney’s guarantor, was already in the hands of the magistrates,
who had handcuffed him and were threatening him with the bamboo: that an
interdiction lay on the Macartney’s cargo, and Mr. ‘–’ himself ran no
small risk of imprisonment.

Our position was at once absurd and extremely serious. To do him
justice, Mr. ‘–’ at once agreed that there could be no question of
delivering up Margit: the penalty of her offence, if proved to the
satisfaction of the Chinese magistrates, being–I can hardly bring
myself to write it–nothing short of strangulation. He could only
promise to accept for the while the risks of delay and do his utmost to
bribe the magistrates into compromising the matter for a small fine.

He proved as good as his word. For five weeks the Macartney lay at
anchor without discharging a pennyweight of her cargo; and every day
brought a new threat, edict, or proclamation. At the end of the first
week the security merchant was allowed to send his agents to offer a
reward of 10,000 dollars to any man of our crew who would swear to
having seen the Englishwoman strike the deceased. The agents conducted
their parley from a boat, and only made off on being threatened with a
bucket of slops. I kept the ship’s guns loaded, and set on a double
watch, night and day. His wife’s peril threw Obed into a state of
apprehension so pitiable that I began to fear for his mind. Margit, on
the other hand, behaved with the coolest composure: and I had some
trouble in persuading her to remain below decks and out of sight.
She relied cheerfully on us and on the crew, every man of whom she had
bound to her (I suppose by her remarkable beauty) in the completest
loyalty.

In five weeks Mr. ‘–’ had spent at least as many thousands of pounds; and
still matters were at a stand when, one day, Mr. Tomlinson reported a
boat under our quarter demanding speech with us. I went to the side and
saw a tall lank-haired man, in a suit of white duck, standing in the
stern-sheets with the tiller-lines in his hands.

“No pigtail on me, Cap!” he bawled. “I’m Oliphant Q. Wills, of the
American barque Independence: and I want to come aboard.” He pointed
to his vessel, which had entered the river soon after us, and now lay,
ready for sea, two cables distant from us.

I saw no reason for refusing; and in less than a minute he came running
up the ladder, and introduced himself again. “Business,” said he; so I
led him to my cabin.

“Hullo!” said he, looking over the floor. “I observe you don’t chew.”
He glanced at the stern-window. I opened it. Our talk then ran as
follows:

Capt. W. “I’ve come to trade.”

Self. “Then you have come, sir, to a very bad ship.”

Capt. W. “I allowed you would say that. I know all about it, and came
in consequence. I never miss a chance.”

Self. “You wish to buy, of course.”

Capt. W. “Not at all. I’m here to sell.”

Self. “What, pray?”

Capt. W. “A half-hogshead cask of pretty ordinary Geneva: with a
Dutchwoman inside.”

Self. “Now, where on earth could you have picked that up?”

Capt. W. (spitting out of window). “In latitude 28 degrees; in a flat
calm; off a Dutch East Indiaman. The name I have at home on a
bit of paper: you shall have it as warranty with the cask.
The captain was drunk, and I traded with the mate. I never
miss a chance. The mate said nothing of the woman inside.
I believe her to be his captain’s wife, preserved for burial
ashore. This is painful for me to speak about; for I had the
worst of the deal, and such is not my reputation. But I
allowed I would sell that cask at a profit if I carried it
around for a hundred years.”

Self. “What do you ask?”

Capt. W. “Well, I have been enquiring of Mr. ‘–’, your Chief Factor
here; and he tells me that your brother, Mr. Obed Lanyon, was
with Cook and Vancouver, and knows the coast from Cape
Flattery northwards and round by the Aleutians like the palm
of his hand. Now it happens I have business up there among
the Russian settlements–part trade, part exploring–
I needn’t say more, for the United States’ Government didn’t
send me to tell secrets. A man like your brother would be
money in my pocket all the way: and at the end of the job I
would undertake to deliver him and his wife safely at any
American port within reason, with money to take them home
like princes, and a trifle over. I’m a square man: and if I
weren’t, you couldn’t be in a worse fix than you are.”

“I think,” said I, “if you do not mind waiting a few minutes, we will
trade, Mr. Wills.” With this I went on deck and hoisted my private
signal for Mr. ‘–’, who came alongside in less than half-an-hour.
He was a practical man, and at once saw the prospect of escape held out
by the American’s offer, ridiculous as it may seem to those who know
little of Chinese law and custom. Indeed one of the magistrates had
frankly appealed to Mr. ‘–’ to hire a substitute for Margit among the
negro women at Macao: and our friend engaged that by spending a few
hundred additional dollars he would get the Dutchwoman’s corpse accepted
as full discharge for the offence, provided that Mrs. Lanyon could be
smuggled out of the Canton River. This Captain Wills readily undertook
to do. Mr. ‘–’ then suggested that his negotiations would be made
easier by the disappearance of all implicated in the scuffle–i.e.
Mr. Tomlinson and myself, as well as Obed and Mrs. Lanyon.
Mr. Findlater, my first officer, could take command and work the
Macartney home; and Mr. ‘–’ engaged to make our case right with the
Company, though at the cost to me of the indirect profits which a
commander looks to make from a homeward voyage. We discussed this for
some while, and in the end agreed to it. Captain Wills, being
short-handed, was even generous enough to offer me a small sum for my
services in assisting him with the navigation.

To be short, all was arranged. That same night a boat from the
Independence brought the famous cask of Geneva alongside, and took us
four English people in exchange, and by 4 a.m. we were under weigh and
heading for the open sea.

The Independence steered through the Formosa Strait, across the
Eastern Sea, and on the 25th of July entered the bay of Nangasaki under
Russian colours, which she thenceforth continued to fly. Like most
European captains, our American kept his straightforward dealing for
certain races only. He produced his trading articles: but the Japanese
wanted nothing, and demanded to know what brought him there?
He answered that he wanted water and fresh provisions (we had a plenty
of both), and to prove it, ordered several butts to be started, and
brought empty on deck. This was enough for the hospitable Japanese; who
next day brought supplies of hogs, fish, and vegetables, for which they
asked no payment; besides four dozen large tubs of water, which Captain
Wills emptied on deck, stopping the scuppers, and removing the plugs at
night so that the water might not be perceived. On the fourth day we
got under weigh again; our deluded friends even going so far in kindness
as to tow us out of the bay, and parting from us with cheers and much
waving of hats and hands.

From Nangasaki we made for Kamschatka and thence for the Aleutian
Islands and the American coast. On his way Captain Wills sedulously
prosecuted the business for which his vessel had been chartered by the
Russian American Company, and distributed his cargo of nankeens, silks,
tea, sugar, etc., among the Russian settlements dotted among the
islands. So far, Obed’s services had been in little request: and I,
too, had leisure to observe and wonder at a certain remarkable change
that had come over Margit–as it seemed to me, from the time of our
entering the parallels above 50 degrees. Her usual calm bearing had
given way to succeeding fits of restlessness and apathy. At times she
would sit dejected for hours together; at others, she would walk the
deck without pause, her cloak thrown open to the cold wind, which she
seemed to drink like a thirsty creature. One day, the vessel being
awkwardly becalmed within a mile of an ugly-looking iceberg, her
excitement rose to something like a frenzy. The weather being hazy,
Obed–who was busy with the captain taking soundings–asked me to run
below for his glass; and there I almost fell Over Margit, who lay on the
cabin floor, her whole body writhing, her hands tightly clenched upon a
handkerchief which she had torn to rags. Of course I asked what ailed
her, and offered to bring help, medicines, anything. She rose in
confusion. ‘It was a pain at the heart,’ she said; ‘nothing more: it
would quickly pass: the cold brought it on, she thought. I would oblige
her by going away; and, above all, by saying nothing to Obed.’

To what extent Obed remarked the change, I cannot tell. He now began to
be pretty busy with his soundings and sketches of the coast. We had
left Kadjak on the 9th of October, and on the last day of the month were
cruising off Queen Charlotte’s Island. So far, considering the lateness
of the season, we had enjoyed remarkable weather. The natives, too,
were friendly beyond expectation. The sight of our vessel brought them
off in great numbers and at times we had as many as a hundred canoes
about us, the largest holding perhaps a dozen, some armed with muskets,
but the most with lances and forks pointed with stags’ antlers and a
kind of scimetar made of whale-rib. We suffered but two or three
persons to board us at a time, and traded with them for dried fish,
sea-otters, beaver and reindeer skins. A string of glass beads (blue
was the favourite colour) would buy a salmon of 20 pounds weight: but
for beaver they would take nothing less valuable than China stuffs.

Obed had warned us against the natives of Queen Charlotte’s Island, as
likely to prove stronger and less friendly than any we had encountered.
We felt a reasonable anxiety, therefore, when, almost as soon as we
sighted the island, a thick fog came up with some wind and a heavy swell
from the south and hid the coast completely. This lasted until November
2nd at daybreak, when the weather lifted and we saw land at about eight
miles’ distance. Unhappily the wind dropped at once, while the motion
of the waves continued, and our sails being useless, we found ourselves
drifting rapidly shoreward with the set of the current. In the height
of our dismay, however, a breeze sprang up from the north-west, and we
worked off.

But we were over-hasty in blessing this breeze, which before midnight
grew to a violent gale: and for two days we drove before it in much
distress–Obed and I taking turns at conning the ship, since Captain
Wills had received an awkward blow between the shoulders from the
swinging of a loose block, and lay below in considerable pain and
occasionally spitting blood, which made us fear some inward hurt.
During the night of the 4th, the wind moderated; but the weather turning
thick again, we were hardly reassured.

Early on the 6th Captain Wills appeared once more on deck and sent me
below to get some sleep. I believe indeed that, had fate allowed, I
could have slept round the clock. But at ten that morning a violent
shock pitched me clean out of my berth. The Independence was aground.

The place of our shipwreck you will find in 47 degrees 66 minutes N.
lat., between Vancouver’s Cape Flattery and the mouth of the Columbia
River, but nearer to the former. Luckily the Independence had run in
upon soft ground and at high water: so that when the tide dropped she
still held together, though badly shaken and gaping in all her lower
seams. To save her was out of the question. We therefore made the best
of our way ashore in the dense fog, taking with us all our guns and the
best part of our ammunition, as well as provisions and a quantity of
sails and spars for rigging up tents. On no side of us could we see
further than twenty paces. Of the inhabitants of this dreary spot–if
indeed it had inhabitants–we knew nothing. So we first of all cleaned
and loaded our firearms, and then set to work to light a fire and erect
a shelter. We had done better, as it turned out, to have divided our
company, and told off a fairly strong party to protect the ship. As it
was, Captain Wills remained on board with three men to cut away and take
down some of the heavier tackling.

We had set up one tent and were at work on the second, when I heard an
exclamation from Margit, who stood by the big cauldron, a few paces off,
cooking our dinner of salt pork. Looking up I saw a ring of savages all
about us on the edge of the fog.

They were brown undersized men, clothed for the most part in dirty
blankets and armed with short lances shod with iron, though one or two
carried muskets. These last I soon discovered to be toens, or elders,
of the tribe. They stood and observed us with great gravity (indeed in
all my acquaintance with them I never knew one to smile) and in
absolute silence. I could not tell how many the fog concealed.
They made no aggressive movement.

I called to Margit, bidding her leave the cauldron and walk quietly
towards us; and she did so. Almost at once a savage thrust his lance
into the pot, drew out our dinner on the end of it, and laid it on the
sand. One of the toens then cut up the pork with his knife and handed
the portions round, retaining a large lump for himself.

Seeing this, some of our men were for hostilities: but I restrained
them and we made our meal from a barrel of biscuit, eating in silence
while the natives chewed away at the pork. The meal over, we fell to
work and finished the second tent without opposition, though curiosity
drew some of our visitors so near as to hamper the workmen. When thrust
aside they showed no resentment, but after a minute drew near again and
impeded us as badly as ever.

Towards nightfall the main body drew off–whither, the fog did not
reveal: but one or two entered the tents with us, hung around while we
supped, and without the least invitation stretched themselves down to
sleep. I own that this impudence tried my temper sorely, and Obed–the
only one of us who knew some scraps of the language of these Indians–
went so far as to remonstrate with them. But if they understood, they
gave no sign of understanding: and we resolved to forbear from violence,
at least so long as Captain Wills and his three comrades remained away
from our main body and exposed to any vengeance these savages might
wreak.

And our fears for the Captain were justified about 4 a.m. by a report of
firearms in the direction of the ship. I sprang to the door and waved a
torch, and in a minute or so our comrades came running in through a
shower of stones and lances, several of which struck the tents.
The natives, it appeared, had attempted to plunder the ship. At great
risk Obed ran out to seek one of the toens and reason with him: but the
mischief happened too quickly. Some of our men caught up their muskets
and fired. Our assailants at once broke up and fled; and half-a-dozen
of us charged down to the water’s edge, where we saw a score and more
with torches, busily setting fire to the ship. They too dispersed
before us, leaving two of their number dead on the field and carrying
off several wounded. But we came too late to save the Independence,
which was already ablaze in a dozen different places; nor could we make
any effort against the flames, for we knew not how sorely we might be
wanted at the tents.

So we returned and spent the rest of the night in great discomfort, the
blaze of the ship colouring the fog all around, but showing us nothing.
Soon after daybreak the weather lifted a little, and what we saw
discouraged us yet further. For, except the beach on which we were
encamped, we found the whole coast covered with thick forest to the
water’s edge; while our boats, in which we might have made shift to
escape, had been either fired or taken off by the savages. At 10 a.m.,
therefore, Captain Wills called a council of war, and informed us that
he could think of no better plan than to push on for a harbour
(its name, if I mistake not, was Gray’s Harbour) lying about seventy
miles to the southward, where a ship of the Company was due to call
early in the spring. Obed remembered it, and added that the journey
might be quickly made, since his map showed no creek or river that
promised to impede us, and the Indians were not likely to annoy us while
the camp and the remains of the barque afforded any plunder.
Accordingly we packed up, and having destroyed what muskets and weapons
we did not want and thrown our spare gunpowder into the sea, shortly
after noon began our march through the forest.

We were nineteen persons in all: and each of us carried two muskets, a
pistol and some pounds of ammunition, besides his share of the
provisions. The only ones more lightly laden were Margit and Captain
Wills. The latter, indeed, could with pain manage to walk at all, and
so clogged the pace of the party that we made but eight miles before
night-fall, when we halted in an open space, set watches, and passed the
night with no more discomfort than came from the severe cold.

In the morning we started early and made a good ten miles before noon.
The Captain now seemed at the end of his powers and we allowed him an
hour’s rest while we cleaned our firearms. Margit gave no sign of
fatigue: but I observed that she walked alone and in silence. Indeed
she had scarcely spoken since our shipwreck.

The ground chosen for our halt lay about mid-way down a stiff slope by
which the forest descended to the sea, visible here and there between
the stems of the trees below us. Shortly before two o’clock, when we
were preparing to start again, a big stone came crashing down among our
stores; and, as we scattered in alarm, two or three others followed.
Looking up, I caught sight of a couple of Indians on the crest of the
slope, and fired off my rifle to frighten them. They desisted at once:
but to prevent further annoyance we made for the crest, where the rocky
ground made walking difficult, so that we added but another five miles
or so before nightfall.

During this night the wind rose, and at length it blew and snowed so
hard as to drive us off the ridge. Luckily, however, one of the men
discovered a shallow cave in the hillside, and here we huddled and
continued all the next day and night, waiting for the storm to abate;
which no sooner happened than we were assailed again by a perfect
bombardment of big stones. These, however, flew harmlessly over our
shelter.

I was dozing at daybreak on the 10th when a seaman named Hogue woke me
and called my attention to the Captain. He was stiff and cold, and had
died in the night without complaint and, as far as could be learnt,
without sound. The rain of stones not being resumed with daylight, we
left his body in the cave, and pushed on over the snow in sad and sorry
condition: for our provisions now began to run short.

Obed assumed the lead, with the consent of all. Once or twice in the
course of the morning I observed him to pause, as if listening.
The cause of this became apparent at about one in the afternoon, when I,
too, heard the sound of running water: and an hour later we halted on
the edge of a broad valley, with a swift stream running through it,
black between banks of snow, and on the near bank a few huts and a crowd
of three hundred Indians at least.

They had already caught sight of us: so we judged it better to advance,
after looking to our arms. We were met by a toen (the same that had cut
up the pork) and a chief of taller stature and pleasanter features than
we had hitherto happened on in the country. It now appeared that the
previous silence of these people had been deliberate: for the toen at
once began to talk in a language fairly intelligible to Obed.
He proposed to supply us with boats to cross the river, if we would give
up our muskets in payment. This, of course, we refused: but offered
him the whole collection of beads and trinkets that we had brought with
us in the hope of trafficking for food. After some haggling–to which
the handsome chief, Yootramaki, listened with seeming disdain–the toen
undertook to let us have the boats; and presently one appeared, paddled
by three naked savages. As this would barely hold a dozen passengers,
we begged for another, that we might all cross together. The toen
complied, and sent a second, but much smaller boat. In these we allowed
ourselves to be distributed–Obed and I with ten others in the larger,
and Margit with five seamen in the smaller.

The boats pushed out into the stream, the larger leading. The current
ran deep and swift: and when, about half-way across, the nearest savage
ceased paddling, I supposed he did so that the others on the starboard
side might more easily bring the bows round to it. Before one could
guess his true intention he had stooped and whipped out a plug from the
boat’s bottom, at the same time calling to his comrades, who leapt up
and flung themselves overboard. The next moment he was after them, and
the whole party swimming to shore. The current swept us down and
carried us so near to a spit of the shore we had left, that the savages,
who now pelted us with arrows, succeeded in killing one seaman, and
wounding four others: but here most fortunately it set right across for
the opposite bank, where we contrived to land just as our boat sank
beneath us. Those in the smaller boat, however, fell into our enemy’s
hands, who clubbed the five seamen on the head, sparing only Margit; and
then, supposing our muskets to be wet and useless, crossed over in a
canoe to attack us.

But as Providence would have it, we had four muskets left dry–they
being slung round us in bandoliers–and the greater part of our powder
unspoiled. We met the foe with a volley which disposed of three and
sank the canoe. The survivors swam for it, and I dare say reached
shore. A second canoe put off, and from the bows of it the rascally
toen (cause of all this misfortune, as we deemed) hailed Obed and
offered to let us go in peace and even restore Margit if we would
surrender our firearms.

I think the coldest heart must have pitied my poor brother then.
He paced the bank like a mad creature, silent, directing the most
agonised looks at his comrades and at me in particular. We turned our
faces aside; for his wishes were madness, yet we were asking him to
sacrifice what was dearest to him in the world. In his distraction then
he tore off most of his clothes, and piling them in a heap besought the
toen to take them for the ransom; and we too stripped and stood all but
naked, adding our prayers to his. But the scoundrel, without regard of
our offering, spoke to his men, and was paddled away.

I will pass over the hour that followed. We quieted Obed’s ravings at
length; or rather, they ceased out of pure exhaustion. We were all
starving in fact, and the food left in our wallets would not keep a cat
alive for another forty-eight hours. Retiring to a clump of firs about
100 yards back from the river’s bank, we scooped a hole in the snow and
entrenched ourselves as well as we could for the night. Some of us
managed to sleep a little; the others tried to allay the pangs of hunger
by chewing their musket-covers, the sponges on their ramrods, even their
boot-soles.

At midnight came my turn for watching. In my weakness I may have dozed,
or perhaps was light-headed. At any rate, turning after some time to
glance at the sleepers, I missed Obed. An ugly suspicion seized me; I
counted the muskets. Two of these were missing. After shaking one of the
sleepers by the elbow and bidding him watch, I leaped over our low
breastwork and ran towards the river in the track of my brother’s
footsteps. Almost as I started, a flash and a report of a musket right
ahead changed the current of my fears. By the light of the young moon I
saw two figures struggling and rolling together on the river’s brink.
They were Obed and our peculiar enemy, the toen. The body of a dead
Indian lad was stretched some ten paces off beside a small canoe which
lay moored by the bank.

Our comrades came running up as I flung myself into the struggle, and we
quickly secured the toen. I believe Obed would have killed him.
“Don’t be a fool!” said I; “cannot you see that we now have a hostage
for Margit?” I ought at the same time to have begged his pardon for my
suspicions. As the reader already knows, Obed had a far keener ear than
I, and it had warned him of the canoe’s approach. It turned out
afterwards that the toen had planned this little reconnoitring
expedition on his own account, and on the chance perhaps of filching a
musket or two.

We quickly laid our plans; and at daybreak flung my gentleman, bound
hand and foot, into his own canoe, which Obed and I paddled into
mid-stream, while our party stood on the bank and watched. The village
opposite seemed deserted: but at Obed’s hail an Indian woman ran out of
the largest hut, and returning, must have summoned the good-looking
chief Yootramaki; who emerged in a minute or so, and came slowly down
the bank. By this time several groups of Indians had gathered and stood
looking on, in all perhaps eighty or a hundred people.

Obed pointed to our prisoner and made his demand. I understood him to
ask for the immediate ransom of Margit, and a supply of salmon and other
provisions to take us on our journey. The chief stood considering for a
while; then spoke to a native boy, who ran to the house; and in a minute
or so Margit herself appeared, wi

Beside the Plymouth road, as it plunges down-hill past Ruan Lanihale
church towards Ruan Cove, and ten paces beyond the lych-gate–where the
graves lie level with the coping, and the horseman can decipher their
inscriptions in passing, at the risk of a twisted neck–the base of the
churchyard wall is pierced with a low archway, festooned with toad-flax
and fringed with the hart’s-tongue fern. Within the archway bubbles a
well, the water of which was once used for all baptisms in the parish,
for no child sprinkled with it could ever be hanged with hemp. But this
belief is discredited now, and the well neglected: and the events which
led to this are still a winter’s tale in the neighbourhood. I set them
down as they were told me, across the blue glow of a wreck-wood fire, by
Sam Tregear, the parish bedman. Sam himself had borne an inconspicuous
share in them; and because of them Sam’s father had carried a white face
to his grave.

My father and mother (said Sam) married late in life, for his trade was
what mine is, and ’twasn’t till her fortieth year that my mother could
bring herself to kiss a gravedigger. That accounts, maybe, for my being
born rickety and with other drawbacks that only made father the fonder.
Weather permitting, he’d carry me off to churchyard, set me upon a flat
stone, with his coat folded under, and talk to me while he delved.
I can mind, now, the way he’d settle lower and lower, till his head
played hidey-peep with me over the grave’s edge, and at last he’d be
clean swallowed up, but still discoursing or calling up how he’d come
upon wonderful towns and kingdoms down underground, and how all the
kings and queens there, in dyed garments, was offering him meat for his
dinner every day of the week if he’d only stop and hobbynob with them–
and all such gammut. He prettily doted on me–the poor old ancient!

But there came a day–a dry afternoon in the late wheat harvest–when we
were up in the churchyard together, and though father had his tools
beside him, not a tint did he work, but kept travishing back and forth,
one time shading his eyes and gazing out to sea, and then looking far
along the Plymouth road for minutes at a time. Out by Bradden Point
there stood a little dandy-rigged craft, tacking lazily to and fro, with
her mains’le all shiny-yellow in the sunset. Though I didn’t know it
then, she was the Preventive boat, and her business was to watch the
Hauen: for there had been a brush between her and the Unity lugger, a
fortnight back, and a Preventive man shot through the breast-bone, and
my mother’s brother Philip was hiding down in the town. I minded,
later, how that the men across the vale, in Farmer Tresidder’s
wheat-field, paused every now and then, as they pitched the sheaves, to
give a look up towards the churchyard, and the gleaners moved about in
small knots, causeying and glancing over their shoulders at the cutter
out in the bay; and how, when all the field was carried, they waited
round the last load, no man offering to cry the Neck, as the fashion
was, but lingering till sun was near down behind the slope and the long
shadows stretching across the stubble.

“Sha’n't thee go underground to-day, father?” says I, at last.

He turned slowly round, and says he, “No, sonny. ‘Reckon us’ll climb
skywards for a change.”

And with that, he took my hand, and pushing abroad the belfry door began
to climb the stairway. Up and up, round and round we went, in a sort of
blind-man’s-holiday full of little glints of light and whiff’s of wind
where the open windows came; and at last stepped out upon the leads of
the tower and drew breath.

“There’s two-an’-twenty parishes to be witnessed from where we’re
standin’, sonny–if ye’ve got eyes,” says my father.

Well, first I looked down towards the harvesters and laughed to see them
so small: and then I fell to counting the church-towers dotted across
the high-lands, and seeing if I could make out two-and-twenty.
‘Twas the prettiest sight–all the country round looking as if ’twas
dusted with gold, and the Plymouth road winding away over the hills like
a long white tape. I had counted thirteen churches, when my father
pointed his hand out along this road and called to me–

“Look’ee out yonder, honey, an’ say what ye see!”

“I see dust,” says I.

“Nothin’ else? Sonny boy, use your eyes, for mine be dim.”

“I see dust,” says I again, “an’ suthin’ twinklin’ in it, like a tin
can–”

“Dragooners!” shouts my father; and then, running to the side of the
tower facing the harvest-field, he put both hands to his mouth and
called:

“What have ‘ee? What have ‘ee?“–very loud and long.

“A neck–a neck!” came back from the field, like as if all shouted at
once–dear, the sweet sound! And then a gun was fired, and craning
forward over the coping I saw a dozen men running across the stubble and
out into the road towards the Hauen; and they called as they ran, “A
neck–a neck!“

“Iss,” says my father, “’tis a neck, sure ’nuff. Pray God they save en!
Come, sonny–”

But we dallied up there till the horsemen were plain to see, and their
scarlet coats and armour blazing in the dust as they came. And when
they drew near within a mile, and our limbs ached with crouching–for
fear they should spy us against the sky–father took me by the hand and
pulled hot foot down the stairs. Before they rode by he had picked up
his shovel and was shovelling out a grave for his life.

Forty valiant horsemen they were, riding two-and-two (by reason of the
narrowness of the road) and a captain beside them–men broad and long,
with hairy top-lips, and all clad in scarlet jackets and white breeches
that showed bravely against their black war-horses and jet-black
holsters, thick as they were wi’ dust. Each man had a golden helmet,
and a scabbard flapping by his side, and a piece of metal like a
half-moon jingling from his horse’s cheek-strap. 12 D was the numbering
on every saddle, meaning the Twelfth Dragoons.

Tramp, tramp! they rode by, talking and joking, and taking no more heed
of me–that sat upon the wall with my heels dangling above them–than if
I’d been a sprig of stonecrop. But the captain, who carried a drawn
sword and mopped his face with a handkerchief so that the dust ran
across it in streaks, drew rein, and looked over my shoulder to where
father was digging.

“Sergeant!” he calls back, turning with a hand upon his crupper;
“didn’t we see a figger like this a-top o’ the tower, some way back?”

The sergeant pricked his horse forward and saluted. He was the tallest,
straightest man in the troop, and the muscles on his arm filled out his
sleeve with the three stripes upon it–a handsome red-faced fellow, with
curly black hair.

Says he, “That we did, sir–a man with sloping shoulders and a boy with
a goose neck.” Saying this, he looked up at me with a grin.

“I’ll bear it in mind,” answered the officer, and the troop rode on in a
cloud of dust, the sergeant looking back and smiling, as if ’twas a joke
that he shared with us. Well, to be short, they rode down into the town
as night fell. But ’twas too late, Uncle Philip having had fair warning
and plenty of time to flee up towards the little secret hold under Mabel
Down, where none but two families knew how to find him. All the town,
though, knew he was safe, and lashins of women and children turned out
to see the comely soldiers hunt in vain till ten o’clock at night.

The next thing was to billet the warriors. The captain of the troop, by
this, was pesky cross-tempered, and flounced off to the “Jolly
Pilchards” in a huff. “Sergeant,” says he, “here’s an inn, though a
damned bad ‘un, an’ here I means to stop. Somewheres about there’s a
farm called Constantine, where I’m told the men can be accommodated.
Find out the place, if you can, an’ do your best: an’ don’t let me see
yer face till to-morra,” says he.

So Sergeant Basket–that was his name–gave the salute, and rode his
troop up the street, where–for his manners were mighty winning,
notwithstanding the dirty nature of his errand–he soon found plenty to
direct him to Farmer Noy’s, of Constantine; and up the coombe they rode
into the darkness, a dozen or more going along with them to show the
way, being won by their martial bearing as well as the sergeant’s very
friendly way of speech.

Farmer Noy was in bed–a pock-marked, lantern-jawed old gaffer of
sixty-five; and the most remarkable point about him was the wife he had
married two years before–a young slip of a girl but just husband-high.
Money did it, I reckon; but if so, ’twas a bad bargain for her.
He was noted for stinginess to such a degree that they said his wife
wore a brass wedding-ring, weekdays, to save the genuine article from
wearing out. She was a Ruan woman, too, and therefore ought to have
known all about him. But woman’s ways be past finding out.

Hearing the hoofs in his yard and the sergeant’s stram-a-ram upon the
door, down comes the old curmudgeon with a candle held high above his
head.

“What the devil’s here?” he calls out. Sergeant Basket looks over the
old man’s shoulder; and there, halfway up the stairs, stood Madam Noy in
her night rail–a high-coloured ripe girl, languishing for love, her red
lips parted and neck all lily-white against a loosened pile of
dark-brown hair.

“Be cussed if I turn back!” said the sergeant to himself; and added out
loud–

“Forty souldjers, in the King’s name!”

“Forty devils!” says old Noy.

“They’re devils to eat,” answered the sergeant, in the most friendly
manner; “an’, begad, ye must feed an’ bed ‘em this night–or else I’ll
search your cellars. Ye are a loyal man–eh, farmer? An’ your cellars
are big, I’m told.”

“Sarah,” calls out the old man, following the sergeant’s bold glance,
“go back an’ dress yersel’ dacently this instant! These here honest
souldjers–forty damned honest gormandisin’ souldjers–be come in his
Majesty’s name, forty strong, to protect honest folks’ rights in the
intervals of eatin’ ‘em out o’ house an’ home. Sergeant, ye be very
welcome i’ the King’s name. Cheese an’ cider ye shall have, an’ I pray
the mixture may turn your forty stomachs.”

In a dozen minutes he had fetched out his stable-boys and farm-hands,
and, lantern in hand, was helping the sergeant to picket the horses and
stow the men about on clean straw in the outhouses. They were turning
back to the house, and the old man was turning over in his mind that the
sergeant hadn’t yet said a word about where he was to sleep, when by the
door they found Madam Noy waiting, in her wedding gown, and with her
hair freshly braided.

Now, the farmer was mortally afraid of the sergeant, knowing he had
thirty ankers and more of contraband liquor in his cellars, and minding
the sergeant’s threat. None the less his jealousy got the upper hand.

“Woman,” he cries out, “to thy bed!”

“I was waiting,” said she, “to say the Cap’n’s bed–”

“Sergeant’s,” says the dragoon, correcting her.

“–Was laid i’ the spare room.”

“Madam,” replies Sergeant Basket, looking into her eyes and bowing,
“a soldier with my responsibility sleeps but little. In the first
place, I must see that my men sup.”

“The maids be now cuttin’ the bread an’ cheese and drawin’ the cider.”

“Then, Madam, leave me but possession of the parlour, and let me have a
chair to sleep in.”

By this they were in the passage together, and her gaze devouring his
regimentals. The old man stood a pace off, looking sourly.
The sergeant fed his eyes upon her, and Satan got hold of him.

“Now if only,” said he, “one of you could play cards!”

“But I must go to bed,” she answered; “though I can play cribbage, if
only you stay another night.”

For she saw the glint in the farmer’s eye; and so Sergeant Basket slept
bolt upright that night in an arm-chair by the parlour fender. Next day
the dragooners searched the town again, and were billeted all about
among the cottages. But the sergeant returned to Constantine, and
before going to bed–this time in the spare room–played a game of
cribbage with Madam Noy, the farmer smoking sulkily in his arm-chair.

“Two for his heels!” said the rosy woman suddenly, halfway through the
game. “Sergeant, you’re cheatin’ yoursel’ an’ forgettin’ to mark.
Gi’e me the board; I’ll mark for both.”

She put out her hand upon the board, and Sergeant Basket’s closed upon
it. ‘Tis true he had forgot to mark; and feeling the hot pulse in her
wrist, and beholding the hunger in her eyes, ’tis to be supposed he’d
have forgot his own soul.

He rode away next day with his troop: but my uncle Philip not being
caught yet, and the Government set on making an example of him, we
hadn’t seen the last of these dragoons. ‘Twas a time of fear down in
the town. At dead of night or at noonday they came on us–six times in
all: and for two months the crew of the Unity couldn’t call their
souls their own, but lived from day to day in secret closets and
wandered the country by night, hiding in hedges and straw-houses.
All that time the revenue men watched the Hauen, night and day, like
dogs before a rat-hole.

But one November morning ’twas whispered abroad that Uncle Philip had
made his way to Falmouth, and slipped across to Guernsey. Time passed
on, and the dragooners were seen no more, nor the handsome
devil-may-care face of Sergeant Basket. Up at Constantine, where he had
always contrived to billet himself, ’tis to be thought pretty Madam Noy
pined to see him again, kicking his spurs in the porch and smiling out
of his gay brown eyes; for her face fell away from its plump condition,
and the hunger in her eyes grew and grew. But a more remarkable fact
was that her old husband–who wouldn’t have yearned after the dragoon,
ye’d have thought–began to dwindle and fall away too. By the New Year
he was a dying man, and carried his doom on his face. And on New Year’s
Day he straddled his mare for the last time, and rode over to Looe, to
Doctor Gale’s.

“Goody-losh!” cried the doctor, taken aback by his appearance–
“What’s come to ye, Noy?”

“Death!” says Noy. “Doctor, I hain’t come for advice, for before this
day week I’ll be a clay-cold corpse. I come to ax a favour. When they
summon ye, before lookin’ at my body–that’ll be past help–go you to
the little left-top corner drawer o’ my wife’s bureau, an’ there ye’ll
find a packet. You’re my executor,” says he, “and I leaves ye to deal
wi’ that packet as ye thinks fit.”

With that, the farmer rode away home-along, and the very day week he
went dead.

The doctor, when called over, minded what the old chap had said, and
sending Madam Noy on some pretence to the kitchen, went over and
unlocked the little drawer with a duplicate key, that the farmer had
unhitched from his watch-chain and given him. There was no parcel of
letters, as he looked to find, but only a small packet crumpled away in
the corner. He pulled it out and gave a look, and a sniff, and another
look: then shut the drawer, locked it, strode straight down-stairs to
his horse and galloped away.

In three hours’ time, pretty Madam Noy was in the constables’ hands upon
the charge of murdering her husband by poison.

They tried her, next Spring Assize, at Bodmin, before the Lord Chief
Justice. There wasn’t evidence enough to put Sergeant Basket in the
dock alongside of her–though ’twas freely guessed he knew more than
anyone (saving the prisoner herself) about the arsenic that was found in
the little drawer and inside the old man’s body. He was subpoena’d from
Plymouth, and cross-examined by a great hulking King’s Counsel for
three-quarters of an hour. But they got nothing out of him.
All through the examination the prisoner looked at him and nodded her
white face, every now and then, at his answers, as much as to say,
“That’s right–that’s right: they shan’t harm thee, my dear.” And the
love-light shone in her eyes for all the court to see. But the sergeant
never let his look meet it. When he stepped down at last she gave a sob
of joy, and fainted bang-off.

They roused her up, after this, to hear the verdict of Guilty and her
doom spoken by the judge. “Pris’ner at the bar,” said the Clerk of
Arraigns, “have ye anything to say why this court should not pass
sentence o’ death?”

She held tight of the rail before her, and spoke out loud and clear–

“My Lord and gentlemen all, I be a guilty woman; an’ I be ready to die
at once for my sin. But if ye kill me now, ye kill the child in my
body–an’ he is innocent.”

Well, ’twas found she spoke truth; and the hanging was put off till
after the time of her delivery. She was led back to prison, and there,
about the end of June, her child was born, and died before he was six
hours old. But the mother recovered, and quietly abode the time of her
hanging.

I can mind her execution very well; for father and mother had determined
it would be an excellent thing for my rickets to take me into Bodmin
that day, and get a touch of the dead woman’s hand, which in those times
was considered an unfailing remedy. So we borrowed the parson’s
manure-cart, and cleaned it thoroughly, and drove in together.

The place of the hangings, then, was a little door in the prison-wall,
looking over the bank where the railway now goes, and a dismal piece of
water called Jail-pool, where the townsfolk drowned most of the dogs and
cats they’d no further use for. All the bank under the gallows was that
thick with people you could almost walk upon their heads; and my ribs
were squeezed by the crowd so that I couldn’t breathe freely for a month
after. Back across the pool, the fields along the side of the valley
were lined with booths and sweet-stalls and standings–a perfect
Whitsun-fair; and a din going up that cracked your ears.

But there was the stillness of death when the woman came forth, with the
sheriff and the chaplain reading in his book, and the unnamed man
behind–all from the little door. She wore a strait black gown, and a
white kerchief about her neck–a lovely woman, young and white and
tearless.

She ran her eye over the crowd and stepped forward a pace, as if to
speak; but lifted a finger and beckoned instead: and out of the people a
man fought his way to the foot of the scaffold. ‘Twas the dashing
sergeant, that was here upon sick-leave. Sick he was, I believe.
His face above his shining regimentals was grey as a slate; for he had
committed perjury to save his skin, and on the face of the perjured no
sun will ever shine.

“Have you got it?” the doomed woman said, many hearing the words.

He tried to reach, but the scaffold was too high, so he tossed up what
was in his hand, and the woman caught it–a little screw of
tissue-paper.

“I must see that, please!” said the sheriff, laying a hand upon her arm.

“‘Tis but a weddin’-ring, sir”–and she slipped it over her finger.
Then she kissed it once, under the beam, and, lookin’ into the dragoon’s
eyes, spoke very slow–

“Husband, our child shall go wi’ you; an’ when I want you he shall
fetch you.“

–and with that turned to the sheriff, saying:

“I be ready, sir.”

The sheriff wouldn’t give father and mother leave for me to touch the
dead woman’s hand; so they drove back that evening grumbling a good bit.
‘Tis a sixteen-mile drive, and the ostler in at Bodmin had swindled the
poor old horse out of his feed, I believe; for he crawled like a slug.
But they were so taken up with discussing the day’s doings, and what a
mort of people had been present, and how the sheriff might have used
milder language in refusing my father, that they forgot to use the whip.
The moon was up before we got halfway home, and a star to be seen here
and there; and still we never mended our pace.

‘Twas in the middle of the lane leading down to Hendra Bottom, where for
more than a mile two carts can’t pass each other, that my father pricks
up his ears and looks back.

“Hullo!” says he; “there’s somebody gallopin’ behind us.”

Far back in the night we heard the noise of a horse’s hoofs, pounding
furiously on the road and drawing nearer and nearer.

“Save us!” cries father; “whoever ’tis, he’s comin’ down th’ lane!”
And in a minute’s time the clatter was close on us and someone shouting
behind.

“Hurry that crawlin’ worm o’ yourn–or draw aside in God’s name, an’ let
me by!” the rider yelled.

“What’s up?” asked my father, quartering as well as he could.
“Why! Hullo! Farmer Hugo, be that you?”

“There’s a mad devil o’ a man behind, ridin’ down all he comes across.
A’s blazin’ drunk, I reckon–but ’tisn’ that–’tis the horrible voice
that goes wi’ en–Hark! Lord protect us, he’s turn’d into the lane!”

Sure enough, the clatter of a second horse was coming down upon us, out
of the night–and with it the most ghastly sounds that ever creamed a
man’s flesh. Farmer Hugo pushed past us and sent a shower of mud in our
faces as his horse leapt off again, and ‘way-to-go down the hill. My
father stood up and lashed our old grey with the reins, and down we went
too, bumpity-bump for our lives, the poor beast being taken suddenly
like one possessed. For the screaming behind was like nothing on earth
but the wailing and sobbing of a little child–only tenfold louder.
‘Twas just as you’d fancy a baby might wail if his little limbs was
being twisted to death.

At the hill’s foot, as you know, a stream crosses the lane–that widens
out there a bit, and narrows again as it goes up t’other side of the
valley. Knowing we must be overtaken further on–for the screams and
clatter seemed at our very backs by this–father jumped out here into
the stream and backed the cart well to one side; and not a second too
soon.

The next moment, like a wind, this thing went by us in the moonlight–
a man upon a black horse that splashed the stream all over us as he
dashed through it and up the hill. ‘Twas the scarlet dragoon with his
ashen face; and behind him, holding to his cross-belt, rode a little
shape that tugged and wailed and raved. As I stand here, sir, ’twas the
shape of a naked babe!

Well, I won’t go on to tell how my father dropped upon his knees in the
water, or how my mother fainted off. The thing was gone, and from that
moment for eight years nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant Basket.
The fright killed my mother. Before next spring she fell into a
decline, and early next fall the old man–for he was an old man now–had
to delve her grave. After this he went feebly about his work, but held
on, being wishful for me to step into his shoon, which I began to do as
soon as I was fourteen, having outgrown the rickets by that time.

But one cool evening in September month, father was up digging in the
yard alone: for ’twas a small child’s grave, and in the loosest soil,
and I was off on a day’s work, thatching Farmer Tresidder’s stacks.
He was digging away slowly when he heard a rattle at the lych-gate, and
looking over the edge of the grave, saw in the dusk a man hitching his
horse there by the bridle.

‘Twas a coal-black horse, and the man wore a scarlet coat all powdered
with pilm; and as he opened the gate and came over the graves, father
saw that ’twas the dashing dragoon. His face was still a slaty-grey,
and clammy with sweat; and when he spoke, his voice was all of a
whisper, with a shiver therein.

“Bedman,” says he, “go to the hedge and look down the road, and tell me
what you see.”

My father went, with his knees shaking, and came back again.

“I see a woman,” says he, “not fifty yards down the road. She is
dressed in black, an’ has a veil over her face; an’ she’s comin’ this
way.”

“Bedman,” answers the dragoon, “go to the gate an’ look back along the
Plymouth road, an’ tell me what you see.”

“I see,” says my father, coming back with his teeth chattering, “I see,
twenty yards back, a naked child comin’. He looks to be callin’, but he
makes no sound.”

“Because his voice is wearied out,” says the dragoon. And with that he
faced about, and walked to the gate slowly.

“Bedman, come wi’ me an’ see the rest,” he says, over his shoulder.

He opened the gate, unhitched the bridle and swung himself heavily up in
the saddle.

Now from the gate the bank goes down pretty steep into the road, and at
the foot of the bank my father saw two figures waiting. ‘Twas the woman
and the child, hand in hand; and their eyes burned up like coals: and
the woman’s veil was lifted, and her throat bare.

As the horse went down the bank towards these two, they reached out and
took each a stirrup and climbed upon his back, the child before the
dragoon and the woman behind. The man’s face was set like a stone.
Not a word did either speak, and in this fashion they rode down the hill
towards Ruan sands. All that my father could mind, beyond, was that the
woman’s hands were passed round the man’s neck, where the rope had
passed round her own.

No more could he tell, being a stricken man from that hour. But Aunt
Polgrain, the house-keeper up to Constantine, saw them, an hour later,
go along the road below the town-place; and Jacobs, the smith, saw them
pass his forge towards Bodmin about midnight. So the tale’s true
enough. But since that night no man has set eyes on horse or riders.

My eyes had been occupied with the grey chimneys below, among the
Spanish chestnuts, at the very moment when I slipped on the northern
face of Skirrid and twisted my ankle. This indeed explains the
accident; and the accident explains why my interest in the house with
the grey chimneys suddenly became a personal one. Five miles separated
me from my inn in Aber town. But the white smoke of a goods train went
crawling across the green and cultivated plain at my feet; and I knew,
though I carried no map, that somewhere under the slope to my left must
hide the country station of Llanfihangel. To reach it I must pass the
house, and there, no doubt, would happen on someone to set me on the
shortest way.

So I picked up my walking-stick and hobbled down the hillside, albeit
with pain. Where the descent eased a little I found and followed a
foot-track, which in time turned into a sunk road scored deep with old
cart-ruts, and so brought me to a desolate farmstead, slowly dropping to
ruin there in the perpetual shadow of the mountain. The slates that had
fallen from the roof of byre and stable lay buried already under the
growth of nettle and mallow and wild parsnip; and the yard-wall was down
in a dozen places. I shuffled through one of these gaps, and almost at
once found myself face to face with a park-fence of split oak–in yet
worse repair, if that were possible. It stretched away right and left
with promise of a noble circumference; but no hand had repaired it for
at least twenty years. I counted no less than seven breaches through
which a man of common size might step without squeezing; availed myself
of the nearest; and having with difficulty dragged my disabled foot up
the ha-ha slope beyond, took breath at the top and looked about me.

The edge of the ha-ha stood but fifty paces back from an avenue of the
most magnificent Spanish chestnuts I have ever seen in my life. A few
of them were withering from the top; and under these many dead boughs
lay as they had fallen, in grass that obliterated almost all trace of
the broad carriage-road. But nine out of ten stood hale and stout, and
apparently good for centuries to come. Northward, the grey facade of
the house glimmered and closed their green prospective, and towards it I
now made my way.

But, I must own, this avenue daunted me, as a frame altogether too
lordly for a mere limping pedestrian. And therefore I was relieved, as
I drew near, to catch the sound of voices behind the shrubberies on my
right hand. This determined me to take the house in flank, and I
diverged and pushed my way between the laurels in search of the
speakers.

“A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! Lobelia, how many horses
has your father in stable? Red, white, or grey?”

“One, Miss Wilhelmina; an’ that’s old Sentry-go, and father says he’ll
have to go to the knacker’s before another winter.”

“Then he shall carry me there on his back: with rings on my fingers and
bells on my toes”–

   She rode unto the knacker's yard,
      And tirled at the pin:
   Right glad were then the cat's-meat men
      To let that lady in!

–especially, Lobelia, when she alighted and sat upon the ground and
began to tell them sad stories of the death of kings. But they cut off
Sentry-go’s head and nailed it over the gate. So he died, and she very
imprudently married the master knacker, who had heard she was an heiress
in her own right, and wanted to decorate his coat-of-arms with an
escutcheon of pretence; and besides, his doctor had recommended a
complete change “–

“Law, miss, how you do run on!”

The young lady who had given utterance to this amazing rigmarole stood
at the top of a terrace flight (much cracked and broken) between two
leaden statuettes (headless)–a willowy child in a large-brimmed hat,
with a riding-switch in one hand and the other holding up an old tartan
shawl, which she had pinned about her to imitate a horse-woman’s habit.
As she paced to and fro between the leaden statuettes–

              pedes vestis defluxit ad imos
           Et vera incessu patuit dea,

–and I noted almost at once that two or three butterflies (”red
admirals” they were) floated and circled about her in the sunlight.
A child of commoner make, and perhaps a year older, dressed in a buff
print frock and pink sunbonnet, looked up at her from the foot of the
steps. The faces of both were averted, and I stood there for at least a
minute on the verge of the laurels, unobserved, considering the picture
they made, and the ruinous Jacobean house that formed its background.

Never was house more eloquent of desolation. Unpainted shutters,
cracking in the heat, blocked one half of its windows. Weather-stains
ran down the slates from the lantern on the main roof. The lantern over
the stable had lost its vane, and the stable-clock its minute-hand.
The very nails had dropped out of the gable wall, and the wistaria and
Gloire de Dijons they should have supported trailed down in tangles,
like curtains. Grass choked the rain-pipes, and moss dappled the gravel
walk. In the border at my feet someone had attempted a clearance of the
weeds; and here lay his hoe, matted with bindweed and ring-streaked with
the silvery tracks of snails.

“Very well, Lobelia. We will be sensible house-maid and cook, and talk
of business. We came out, I believe, to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an
apple-pie”–

At this point happening to turn her head she caught sight of me, and
stopped with a slight, embarrassed laugh. I raised my hat.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but no strangers are admitted here.”

“I beg your pardon”–I began; and with that, as I shifted my
walking-stick, my foolish ankle gave way, and plump I sat in the very
middle of the bindweed.

“You are ill?” She came quickly towards me, but halted a pace or two
off. “You look as if you were going to faint.”

“I’ll try not to,” said I. “The fact is, I have just twisted my ankle
on the side of Skirrid, and I wished to be told the shortest way to the
station.”

“I don’t believe you can walk; and”–she hesitated a second, then went
on defiantly–”we have no carriage to take you.”

“I should not think of putting you to any such trouble.”

“Also, if you want to reach Aber, there is no train for the next two
hours. You must come in and rest.”

“But really “–

“I am mistress here. I am Wilhelmina Van der Knoope.”

Being by this time on my feet again, I bowed and introduced myself by
name. She nodded. The child had a thoughtful face–thoughtful beyond
her years–and delicately shaped rather than pretty.

“Lobelia, run in and tell the Admirals that a gentleman has called, with
my permission.”

Having dismissed the handmaiden, she observed me in silence for a few
moments while she unpinned her tartan riding-skirt. Its removal
disclosed, not–as I had expected–a short frock, but one of quite
womanly length; and she carried it with the air of a grown woman.

“You must make allowances, please. I think,” she mused, “yes, I really
think you will be able to help. But you must not be surprised, mind.
Can you walk alone, or will you lean a hand on my shoulder?”

I could walk alone. Of what she meant I had of course no inkling; but I
saw she was as anxious now for me to come indoors as she had been prompt
at first to warn me off the premises. So I hobbled after her towards
the house. At the steps by the side-door she turned and gave me a hand.
We passed across a stone-flagged hall and through a carpetless corridor,
which brought us to the foot of the grand staircase: and a magnificent
staircase it was, ornate with twisted balusters and hung with fine
pictures, mostly by old Dutch masters. But no carpet covered the broad
steps, and the pictures were perishing in their frames for lack of
varnish. I had halted to stare up at a big Hondecoeter that hung in the
sunlight over the first short flight of stairs–an elaborate “Parliament
of Fowls”–when the girl turned the handle of a door to my right and
entered.

“Uncle Peter, here is the gentleman who has called to see you.”

As I crossed the threshold I heard a chair pushed back, and a very old
gentleman rose to welcome me at the far end of the cool and shadowy
room; a tall white-haired figure in a loose suit of holland. He did not
advance, but held out a hand tentatively, as if uncertain from what
direction I was advancing. Almost at once I saw that he was
stone-blind.

“But where is Uncle Melchior?” exclaimed Wilhelmina.

“I believe he is working at accounts,” the old gentleman answered–
addressing himself to vacancy, for she had already run from the room.
He shook hands courteously and motioned me to find a chair, while he
resumed his seat beside a little table heaped with letters, or rather
with bundles of letters neatly tied and docketed. His right hand rested
on these bundles, and his fingers tapped upon them idly for a minute
before he spoke again.

“You are a friend of Fritz’s? of my grandson?”

“I have not the pleasure of knowing him, sir. Your niece’s introduction
leaves me to explain that I am just a wayfarer who had the misfortune to
twist an ankle, an hour ago, on Skirrid, and crawled here to ask his
way.”

His face fell. “I was hoping that you brought news of Fritz. But you
are welcome, sir, to rest your foot here; and I ask your pardon for not
perceiving your misfortune. I am blind. But Wilhelmina–my grandniece
–will attend to your wants.”

“She is a young lady of very large heart,” said I. He appeared to
consider for a while. “She is with me daily, but I have not seen her
since she was a small child, and I always picture her as a child.
To you, no doubt, she is almost a woman grown?”

“In feeling, I should say, decidedly more woman than child; and in
manner.”

“You please me by saying so. She is to marry Fritz, and I wish that to
happen before I die.”

Receiving no answer to this–for, of course, I had nothing to say–he
startled me with a sudden question. “You disapprove of cousins
marrying?”

I could only murmur that a great deal depended on circumstances.

“And there are circumstances in this case. Besides, they are second
cousins only. And they both look forward to it. I am not one to force
their inclinations, you understand–though, of course, they know it to
be my wish–the wish of both of us, I may say; for Melchior is at one
with me in this. Wilhelmina accepts her future–speaks of it, indeed,
with gaiety. And as for Fritz–though they have not seen each other
since he was a mere boy and she an infant–as for Fritz, he writes–but
you shall judge from his last letter.”

He felt among the packets and selected one. “I know one from t’other by
the knots,” he explained. “I am an old seaman! Now here is his last,
written from the South Pacific station. He sends his love to ‘Mina, and
jokes about her being husband-high: ‘but she must grow, if we are to do
credit to the Van der Knoopes at the altar.’ It seems that he is
something below the traditional height of our family; but a thorough
seaman, for all his modesty. There, sir: you will find the passage on
the fourth page, near the top.”

I took the letter; and there, to be sure, read the words the old Admiral
had quoted. But it struck me that Fritz Van der Knoope used a very
ladylike handwriting, and of a sort not usually taught on H.M.S.
Britannia.

“In two years’ time the lad will be home, all being well. And then, of
course, we shall see.”

“Of what rank is he?”

“At present a second lieutenant. His age is but twenty-one. The Van
der Knoopes have all followed the sea, as the portraits in this house
will tell you. Ay, and we have fought against England in our time. As
late as 1672, Adrian Van der Knoope commanded a ship under De Ruyter
when he outgeneralled the English in Southwold Bay. But since 1688 our
swords have been at the service of our adopted country; and she has used
them, sir.”

I am afraid I was not listening. My chair faced the window, and as I
glanced at the letter in my hands enough light filtered through the
transparent “foreign” paper to throw up the watermark, and it bore the
name of an English firm.

This small discovery, quite unwillingly made, gave me a sudden sense of
shame, as though I had been playing some dishonourable trick. I was
hastily folding up the paper, to return it, when the door opened and
Wilhelmina came in, with her uncle Melchior.

She seemed to divine in an instant what had happened; threw a swift
glance at the blind Admiral, and almost as swiftly took the letter from
my hand and restored it to the packet. The next moment, with perfect
coolness she was introducing me to her uncle Melchior.

Melchior Van der Knoope was perhaps ten years younger than his brother,
and carried his tall figure buttoned up tightly in an old-fashioned
frockcoat: a mummy of a man, with a fixed air of mild bewilderment and a
trick of running his left hand through his white hair–due, no doubt, to
everlasting difficulty with the family accounts. He shook hands as
ceremoniously as his brother.

“We have been talking of Fritz,” said old Peter.

“Oh yes–of Fritz. To be sure.” Melchior answered him vaguely, and
looked at me with a puzzled smile. There was silence in the room till
his brother spoke again. “I have been showing Mr.–Fritz’s last
letter.”

“Fritz writes entertainingly,” murmured Melchior, and seemed to cast
about for another word, but repeated, “–entertainingly. If the state
of your ankle permits, sir, you will perhaps take an interest in our
pictures. I shall be happy to show them to you.”

And so, with the occasional support of Melchior’s arm, I began a tour of
the house. The pictures indeed were a sufficient reward–seascapes by
Willem Van der Velde, flower-portraits by Willem Van Aslet,
tavern-scenes by Adrian Van Ostade; a notable Cuyp; a small Gerard Dow
of peculiar richness; portraits–the Burgomaster Albert Van der Knoope,
by Thomas de Keyser–the Admiral Nicholas, by Kneller–the Admiral Peter
(grand-uncle of the blind Admiral), by Romney. . . . My guide seemed as
honestly proud of them as insensible of their condition, which was in
almost every case deplorable. By-and-by, in the library we came upon a
modern portrait of a rosy-faced boy in a blue suit, who held (strange
combination!) a large ribstone pippin in one hand and a cricket bat in
the other–a picture altogether of such glaring demerit that I wondered
for a moment why it hung so conspicuously over the fireplace, while
worthier paintings were elbowed into obscure corners. Then with a
sudden inkling I glanced at Uncle Melchior. He nodded gravely.

“That is Fritz.”

I pulled out my watch. “I believe,” I said, “it must be time for me to
bid your brother good-bye.”

“You need be in no hurry,” said Miss Wilhelmina’s voice behind me.
“The last train to Aber has gone at least ten minutes since.
You must dine and sleep with us to-night.”

I awoke next morning between sheets of sweet-smelling linen in a carved
four-post bed, across the head-board of which ran the motto “STEMMATA
QVID FACIVNT” in faded letters of gilt. If the appearance of the room,
with its tattered hangings and rickety furniture, had counted for
anything, my dreams should certainly have been haunted. But, as a
matter of fact, I never slept better. Possibly the lightness of the
dinner (cooked by the small handmaid Lobelia) had something to do with
it; possibly, too, the infectious somnolence of the two Admirals, who
spoke but little during the meal, and nodded, without attempt at
dissimulation, over the dessert. At any rate, shortly after nine
o’clock–when Miss Wilhelmina brought out a heavy Church Service, and
Uncle Melchior read the lesson and collect for the day and a few
prayers, including the one “For those at Sea”–I had felt quite ready
for bed. And now, thanks to a cold compress, my ankle had mended
considerably. I descended to breakfast in very cheerful mind, and found
Miss Wilhelmina alone at the table.

“Uncle Peter,” she explained, “rarely comes down before mid-day; and
Uncle Melchior breakfasts in his room. He is busy with the accounts.”

“So early?”

She smiled rather sadly. “They take a deal of disentangling.”

She asked how my ankle did. When I told her, and added that I must
catch an early train back to Aber, she merely said, “I will walk to the
station with you, if I may.”

And so at ten o’clock–after I had bidden farewell to Uncle Melchior,
who wore the air of one interrupted in a long sum of compound addition–
we set forth. I knew the child had something on her mind, and waited.
Once, by a ruinous fountain where a stone Triton blew patiently at a
conch-shell plugged with turf, she paused and dug at the mortared joints
of the basin with the point of her sunshade; and I thought the
confidence was coming. But it was by the tumble-down gate at the end of
the chestnut avenue that she turned and faced me.

“I knew you yesterday at once,” she said. “You write novels.”

“I wish,” said I feebly, “the public were as quick at discovering me.”

“Somebody printed an ‘interview’ with you in ‘–’s Magazine a month or
two ago.”

“There was not the slightest resemblance.”

“Please don’t be silly. There was a photograph.”

“Ah, to be sure.”

“You can help me–help us all–if you will.”

“Is it about Fritz?”

She bent her head and signed to me to open the gate. Across the
high-road a stile faced us, and a little church, with an acre framed in
elms and set about with trimmed yews. She led the way to the low and
whitewashed porch, and pushed open the iron-studded door. As I
followed, the name of Van der Knoope repeated itself on many mural
tablets. Almost at the end of the south aisle she paused and lifted a
finger and pointed.

I read–

                            SACRED
                       To the Memory of
                FRITZ OPDAM DE KEYSER VAN DER KNOOPE
                  A Midshipman of the Royal Navy
                Who was born Oct. 21st MDCCCLXVII.
                       And Drowned
                 By the Capsizing of H.M.S. Viper
                  off the North Coast of Ireland
                 On the 17th of January MDCCCLXXXV.
              A youth of peculiar promise who lacked
                  but the greater indulgence of
                     an all-wise Providence
             to earn the distinction of his forefathers
            (of whom he was the last male representative)
                   in his Country's service
                          in which
                    he laid down his young life

                         ----------
             Heu miserande puer! Si qua fata aspera rumpas
                    Tu Marcellus eris.

“Uncle Melchior had it set up. I wonder what Fritz was really like.”

“And your Uncle Peter still believes–?”

“Oh yes. I am to marry Fritz in time. That is where you must help us.
It would kill Uncle Peter if he knew. But Uncle Melchior gets puzzled
whenever it comes to writing; and I am afraid of making mistakes.
We’ve put him down in the South Pacific station at present–that will
last for two years more. But we have to invent the gossip, you know.
And I thought that you–who wrote stories–”

“My dear young lady,” I said, “let me be Fritz, and you shall have a
letter duly once a month.”

And my promise was kept–until, two years ago, she wrote that there was
no further need for letters, for Uncle Peter was dead. For aught I
know, by this time Uncle Melchior may be dead also. But regularly, as
the monthly date comes round, I am Fritz Opdam de Keyser van der Knoope,
a young midshipman of Her Majesty’s Navy; and wonder what my affianced
bride is doing; and see her on the terrace steps with those butterflies
floating about her. In my part of the world it is believed that the
souls of the departed pass into these winged creatures. So might the
souls of those many pictured Admirals: but some day, before long, I hope
to cross Skirrid again and see.

[Or so much as is told of her by Paschal Tonkin, steward and major-domo
to the lamented John Milliton, of Pengersick Castle, in Cornwall: of her
coming in the Portugal Ship, anno 1526; her marriage with the said
Milliton and alleged sorceries; with particulars of the Barbary men
wrecked in Mount's Bay and their entertainment in the town of Market
Jew.]

My purpose is to clear the memory of my late and dear Master; and to
this end I shall tell the truth and the truth only, so far as I know it,
admitting his faults, which, since he has taken them before God, no man
should now aggravate by guess-work. That he had traffic with secret
arts is certain; but I believe with no purpose but to fight the Devil
with his own armoury. He never was a robber as Mr. Thomas St. Aubyn and
Mr. William Godolphin accused him; nor, as the vulgar pretended, a
lustful and bloody man. What he did was done in effort to save a
woman’s soul; as Jude tells us, “Of some have compassion, that are in
doubt; and others save, having mercy with fear, pulling them out of the
fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh“–though this, alas!
my dear Master could not. And so with Jude I would end, praying for all
of us and ascribing praise to the only wise God, our Saviour, who is
able to guard us from stumbling and set us faultless before His presence
with exceeding joy.

It was in January, 1526, after a tempest lasting three days, that the
ship called the Saint Andrew, belonging to the King of Portugal, drove
ashore in Gunwallo Cove, a little to the southward of Pengersick.
She was bound from Flanders to Lisbon with a freight extraordinary
rich–as I know after a fashion by my own eyesight, as well as from the
inventory drawn up by Master Francis Porson, an Englishman, travelling
on board of her as the King of Portugal’s factor. I have a copy of it
by me as I write, and here are some of Master Porson’s items:–

   8,000 cakes of copper, valued by him at      3,224 pounds.
   18 blocks of silver,    '    '    '          2,250   '.
   Silver vessels, plate, patens, ewers and
   pots, beside pearls, precious stones,
   and jewels of gold.
   Also a chest of coined money, in amount      6,240   '.

There was also cloth of arras, tapestry, rich hangings, satins, velvets,
silks, camlets, says, satins or Bruges, with great number of bales of
Flemish and English cloth; 2,100 barber’s basins; 3,200 laten
candlesticks; a great chest of shalmers and other instruments of music;
four sets of armour for the King of Portugal, much harness for his
horses, and much beside–the whole amounting at the least computation to
16,000 pounds in value. [1] And this I can believe on confirmation of
what I myself saw upon the beach.

But let me have done with Master Porson and his tale, which runs that
the Saint Andrew, having struck at the mouth of the cove, there
utterly perished; yet, by the grace and mercy of Almighty God, the
greater part of the crew got safely to land, and by help of many poor
folk dwelling in the neighbourhood saved all that was most valuable of
the cargo. But shortly after (says he) there came on the scene three
gentlemen, Thomas Saint Aubyn, William Godolphin, and John Milliton,
with about sixty men armed in manner of war with bows and swords, and
made an assault on the shipwrecked sailors and put them in great fear
and jeopardy; and in the end took from them all they had saved from the
wreck, amounting to 10,000 pounds worth of treasure–”which,” says he,
“they will not yield up, nor make restitution, though they have been
called upon to do so.”

So much then for the factor’s account, which I doubt not he believed to
be true enough; albeit on his own confession he had lain hurt and
unconscious upon the beach at the time, and his tale rested therefore on
what he could learn by hearsay after his recovery; when–the matter
being so important–he was at trouble to journey all the way to London
and lay his complaint before the Portuguese ambassador. Moreover he
made so fair a case of it that the ambassador obtained of the English
Court a Commissioner, Sir Nicholas Fleming, to travel down and push
enquiries on the spot–where Master Porson did not scruple to repeat his
accusation, and to our faces (having indeed followed the Commissioner
down for that purpose). I must say I thought him a very honest man–not
to say a brave one, seeing what words he dared to use to Mr. Saint Aubyn
in his own house at Clowance, calling him a mere robber. I was there
when he said it and made me go hot and cold, knowing (if he did not)
that for two pins Mr. Saint Aubyn might have had him drowned like a
puppy. However, he chose to make nothing of an insult from a factor.
“Mercator tantum,” replied he, snapping his fingers, and to my great
joy; for any violence might have spoiled the story agreed on between
us–that is, between Mr. Saint Aubyn, Mr. Godolphin, and me who acted as
deputy for my Master.

This story of ours, albeit less honest, had more colour of the truth
than Master Porson’s hearsay. It ran that Mr. Saint Aubyn, happening
near Gunwallo, heard of the wreck and rode to it, where presently Mr.
Godolphin and my Master joined him and helped to save the men; that, in
attempting to save the cargo also, a man of Mr. Saint Aubyn’s–one Will
Carnarthur–was drowned; that, in fact, very little was rescued; and,
seeing the men destitute and without money to buy meat and drink, we
bought the goods in lawful bargain with the master. As for the assault,
we denied it, or that we took goods to the value of ten thousand pounds
from the sailors. All that was certainly known to be saved amounted to
about 20 pounds worth; and, in spite of many trials to recover more,
which failed to pay the charges of labour, the bulk of the cargo
remained in the ship and was broken up by the seas.

This was our tale, false in parts, yet a truer one than either of us,
who uttered it, believed. The only person in the plot (so to say) who
knew it to be true in substance was my Master. I, his deputy, took this
version from him to Clowance with a mind glad enough to be relieved by
my duty from having any opinion on the matter. On the one hand, I had
the evidence of my senses that the booty had been saved, and too much
wit to doubt that any other man would conclude it to be in my Master’s
possession. On the other, I had never known him lie or deceive, or
engage me to further any deceit; his word was his bond, and by practice
my word was his bond also. Further, of this affair I had already begun
to wonder if a man’s plain senses could be trusted, as you will hear
reason by-and-by. As for Mr. Saint Aubyn and Mr. Godolphin, they had no
doubt at all that my Master was lying, and that I had come wittingly to
further his lie. They would have drawn on him (I make no doubt) had he
brought the tale in person. From me, his intermediate, they took it as
the best to suit with the known truth and present to the Commissioner.
All Cornishmen are cousins, you may say. It comes to this, rather:
these gentlemen chose to accept my master’s lie, and settle with him
afterwards, rather than make a clean breast and be forced to wring their
small shares out of the Exchequer. A neighbour can be persuaded,
terrified, forced; but London is always a long way off, and London
lawyers are the devil. I say freely that (knowing no more than they
did, or I) these two gentlemen followed a reasonable policy.

But, after we had fitted Sir Nicholas with our common story, and as I
was mounting my horse in Clowance courtyard, Mr. Saint Aubyn came close
to my stirrup and said this by way of parting:

“You will understand, Mr. Tonkin, that to-day’s tale is for to-day.
But by God I will come and take my share–you may tell your master–and
a trifle over! And the next time I overtake you I promise to put a
bullet in the back of your scrag neck.”

For answer to this–seeing that Master Porson stood at an easy distance
with his eye on us–I saluted him gravely and rode out of the courtyard.

Now the manner of the wreck was this, and our concern with it.
So nearly as I can learn, the Saint Andrew came ashore at two hours
after noon: the date, the 20th of January, 1526, and the weather at the
time coarse and foggy with a gale yet blowing from the south-west or a
good west of south, but sensibly abating, and the tide wanting an hour
before low water.

It happened that Mr. Saint Aubyn was riding, with twenty men at his
back, homeward from Gweek, where he had spent three days on some private
business, when he heard news of the wreck at a farmhouse on the road to
Helleston: and so turning aside, he, whose dwelling lay farthest from
it, came first to the cove. The news reached us at Pengersick a little
after three o’clock; as I remember because my Master was just then
settled to dinner. But he rose at once and gave word to saddle in
haste, at the same time bidding me make ready to ride with him, and
fifteen others.

So we set forth and rode–the wind lulling, but the rain coming down
steadily–and reached Gunwallo Cove with a little daylight to spare.
On the beach there we found most of the foreigners landed, but seven of
them laid out starkly, who had been drowned or brought ashore dead
(for the yard had fallen on board, the day before, and no time left in
the ship’s extremity to bury them): and three as good as dead–among
whom was Master Porson, with a great wound of the scalp; also everywhere
great piles of freight, chests, bales, and casks–a few staved and
taking damage from salt water and rain, but the most in apparent good
condition. The crew had worked very busily at the salving, and to the
great credit of men who had come through suffering and peril of death.
Mr. Saint Aubyn’s band, too, had lent help, though by this time the
flowing of the tide forced them to give over. But the master (as one
might say) of their endeavours was neither the Portuguese captain nor
Mr. Saint Aubyn, but a young damsel whom I must describe more
particularly.

She was standing, as we rode down the beach, nigh to the water’s edge;
with a group of men about her, and Mr. Saint Aubyn himself listening to
her orders. I can see her now as she turned at our approaching and she
and my Master looked for the first time into each other’s eyes, which
afterwards were to look so often and fondly. In age she appeared
eighteen or twenty; her shape a mere girl’s, but her face somewhat
older, being pinched and peaked by the cold, yet the loveliest I have
ever seen or shall see. Her hair, which seemed of a copper red,
darkened by rain, was blown about her shoulders, and her drenched blue
gown, hitched at the waist with a snakeskin girdle, flapped about her as
she turned to one or the other, using more play of hands than our
home-bred ladies do. Her feet were bare and rosy; ruddied doubtless, by
the wind and brine, but I think partly also by the angry light of the
sunsetting which broke the weather to seaward and turned the pools and
the wetted sand to the colour of blood. A hound kept beside her,
shivering and now and then lowering his muzzle to sniff the oreweed, as
if the brine of it puzzled him: a beast in shape somewhat like our
grey-hounds, but longer and taller, and coated like a wolf.

As I have tried to describe her she stood amid the men and the tangle of
the beach; a shape majestical and yet (as we drew closer) slight and
forlorn. The present cause of her gestures we made out to be a
dark-skinned fellow whom two of Saint Aubyn’s men held prisoner with his
arms trussed behind him. On her other hand were gathered the rest of
the Portuguese, very sullen and with dark looks whenever she turned from
them to Saint Aubyn and from their language to the English. He, I could
see, was perplexed, and stood fingering his beard: but his face
brightened as he came a step to meet my Master.

“Ha!” said he, “you can help us, Milliton. You speak the Portuguese, I
believe?” (For my master was known to speak most of the languages of
Europe, having caught them up in his youth when his father’s madness
forced him abroad. And I myself, who had accompanied him so far as
Venice, could pick my way in the lingua Franca.) “This fellow”–
pointing at the prisoner–”has just drawn a knife on the lady here; and
indeed would have killed her, but for this hound of hers. My fellows
have him tight and safe, as you see: but I was thinking by your leave to
lodge him with you, yours being the nearest house for the safe keeping
of such. But the plague is,” says he, “there seems to be more in the
business than I can fathom: for one half of these drenched villains take
the man’s part, while scarce one of them seems too well disposed towards
the lady: although to my knowledge she has worked more than any ten of
them in salving the cargo. And heaven help me if I can understand a
word of their chatter!”

My Master lifted his cap to her; and she lifted her eyes to him, but
never a word did she utter, though but a moment since she had been using
excellent English. Only she stood, slight and helpless and (I swear)
most pitiful, as one saying, “Here is my judge. I am content.”

My Master turned to the prisoner and questioned him in the Portuguese.
But the fellow (a man taller than the rest and passably
straight-looking) would confess nothing but that his name was Gil Perez
of Lagos, the boatswain of the wrecked ship. Questioned of the assault,
he shook his head merely and shrugged his shoulders. His face was
white: it seemed to me unaccountably, until glancing down I took note of
a torn wound above his right knee on the inside, where the hound’s teeth
had fastened.

“But who is the captain of the ship?” my Master demanded in Portuguese;
and they thrust forward a small man who seemed not over-willing.
Indeed his face had nothing to commend him, being sharp and yellow, with
small eyes set too near against the nose.

“Your name?” my Master demanded of him too.

“Affonzo Cabral,” he answered, and plunged into a long tale of the loss
of his ship and how it happened. Cut short in this and asked concerning
the lady, he shrugged his shoulders and replied with an oath he knew
nothing about her beyond this, that she had taken passage with him at
Dunquerque for Lisbon, paying him beforehand and bearing him a letter
from the Bishop of Cambrai, which conveyed to him that she was bound on
some secret mission of politics to the Court of Lisbon.

As I thought, two or three of the men would have murmured something
here, but for a look from her, who, turning to my Master, said quietly
in good English:

“That man is a villain. My name is Alicia of Bohemia, and my mission
not to be told here in public. But he best knows why he took me for
passenger, and how he has behaved towards me. Yourselves may see how I
have saved his freight. And for the rest, sir”–here she bent her eyes
on my Master very frankly–”I have proved these men, and claim to be
delivered from them.”

At this my Master knit his brows: and albeit he was a young man (scarce
past thirty) and a handsome, the deep wedge-mark showed between them as
I had often seen it show over the nose of the old man his father.

“I think,” said he to Mr. Saint Aubyn, “this should be inquired into at
greater leisure. With your leave my men shall take the prisoner to
Pengersick and have him there in safe keeping. And if”–with a bow–”
the Lady Alicia will accept my poor shelter it will be the handier for
our examining of him. For the rest, cannot we be of service in rescuing
yet more of the cargo?”

But this for the while was out of question: the Saint Andrew lying
well out upon the strand, with never fewer than four or five ugly
breakers between her and shore; and so balanced that every sea worked
her to and fro. Moreover, her mizzen mast yet stood, as by a miracle,
and the weight of it so strained at her seams that (thought I) there
could be very little left of her by the next ebb.

By now, too, the night was closing down, and we must determine what to
do with the cargo saved. Mr. Godolphin, who had arrived with his men
during my Master’s colloquy, was ready with an offer of wains and
pack-horses to convey the bulk of it to the outhouses at Godolphin.
But this, when I interpreted it, the Portuguese captain would not hear.
Nor was he more tractable to Mr. Saint Aubyn’s offer to set a mixed
guard of our three companies upon the stuff until daybreak. He plainly
had his doubts of such protection: and I could not avoid some respect
for his wisdom while showing it by argument to be mere perversity.
To my Master’s persuasions and mine he shook his head: asking for the
present to be allowed a little fuel and refreshment for his men, who
would camp on the beach among their goods. And to this, in the end, we
had to consent. Several times before agreeing–and perhaps more often
than need was–my Master consulted with the Lady Alicia. But she seemed
indifferent what happened to the ship. Indeed, she might well have been
overwearied.

At length, the Portugals having it their own way, we parted: Mr. Saint
Aubyn riding off to lodge for the night with Mr. Godolphin, who took
charge of the three wounded men; while we carried the Lady Alicia off to
Pengersick (whither the prisoner Gil Perez had been marched on ahead),
she riding pillion behind my Master, and the rest of us at a seemly
distance.

On reaching home I had first to busy myself with orders for the victuals
to be sent down to the foreigners at the Cove, and afterwards in
snatching my supper in the great hall, where already I saw my Master and
the strange lady making good cheer together at the high table. He had
bidden the housekeeper fetch out some robes that had been his mother’s,
and in these antique fittings the lady looked not awkwardly (as you
might suppose), but rather like some player in a masque. I know not how
’twas: but whereas (saving my respect) I had always been to my dear
Master as a brother, close to his heart and thoughts, her coming did at
once remove him to a distance from me, so that I looked on the pair as
if the dais were part of some other world than this, and they, pledging
each other up there and murmuring in foreign tongues and playing with
glances, as two creatures moving through a play or pisky tale without
care or burden of living, and yet in the end to be pitied.

My fast broken, I bethought me of our prisoner; and catching up some
meats and a flask of wine, hurried to the strong room where he lay. But
I found him stretched on his pallet, and turning in a kind of fever: so
returned and fetched a cooling draught in place of the victuals, and
without questioning made him drink it. He thanked me amid some
rambling, light-headed talk–the most of it too quickly poured out for
me to catch; but by-and-by grew easier and drowsy. I left him to sleep,
putting off questions for the morning.

But early on the morrow–between five and six o’clock–came Will Hendra,
a cowkeeper, into our courtyard with a strange tale; one that disquieted
if it did not altogether astonish me. The tale–as told before my
Master, whom I aroused to hear it–ran thus: that between midnight and
one in the morning the Portugals in the Cove had been set upon and
beaten from the spoils by a number of men with pikes (no doubt belonging
to Saint Aubyn or Godolphin, or both), and forced to flee to the cliffs.
But (here came in the wonder) the assailants, having mastered the field,
fell on the casks, chests, and packages, only to find them utterly empty
or filled with weed and gravel! Of freight–so Will Hendra had it from
one of Godolphin’s own men, who were now searching the cliffs and
caverns–not twelve-pennyworth remained on the beach. The Portugals
must have hidden or made away with it all. He added that their captain
had been found at the foot of the cliffs with his head battered in; but
whether by a fall or a blow taken in the affray, there was no telling.

My Master let saddle at once and rode away for the Cove without breaking
his fast. And I went about my customary duties until full daybreak,
when I paid a visit to the strong room, to see how the prisoner had
slept.

I found him sitting up in bed and nursing his leg, the wound of which
appeared red and angry at the edges. I sent, therefore, for a
fomentation, and while applying it thought no harm to tell him the
report from the Cove. To my astonishment it threw him into a transport,
though whether of rage or horror I could not at first tell. But he
jerked his leg from my grasp, and beating the straw with both fists he
cried out–

“I knew it! I knew it would be so! She is a witch–a daughter of
Satan, or his leman! It is her doing, I tell you. It is she who has
killed that fool Affonzo. She is a witch!” He fell back on the straw,
his strength spent, but still beat weakly with his fists, gasping
“Witch–witch!”

“Hush!” said I. “You are light-headed with your hurt. Lie quiet and
let me tend it.”

“As for my hurt,” he answered, “your tending it will do no good.
The poison of that hound of hell is in me, and nothing for me but to say
my prayers. But listen you”–here he sat up again and plucked me by the
shoulder as I bent over his leg. “The freight is not gone, and good
reason for why: it was never landed!”

“Hey?” said I, incredulous.

“It was never landed. The men toiled as she ordered–Lord, how they
toiled! Without witch-craft they had never done the half of it. I tell
you they handled moonshine–wove sand. The riches they brought ashore
were emptiness; vain shows that already have turned to chips and straw
and rubbish. Nay, sir”–for I drew back before these ravings–”listen
for the love of God, before the poison gets hold of me! Soon it will be
too late. . . . The evening before we sailed from Dunquerque, we were
anchored out in the tide. It was my watch. I was leaning on the rail
of the poop when I caught sight of her first. She was running for her
life across the dunes–running for the waterside–she and her hound
beside her. Away behind her, like ants dotted over the rises of the
sand, were little figures running and pursuing. Down by the waterside
one boat was waiting, with a man in it–or the Devil belike–leaning on
his oars. She whistled; he pulled close in shore. She leapt into the
boat with the dog at her heels, and was half-way across towards our ship
before the first of those after her reached the water’s edge. When she
hailed us I ran and fetched Affonzo the master. The rest I charge to
his folly. It was he who handed her up the ship’s side. How the dog
came on board I know not: only that I leaned over the bulwarks to have a
look at him, but heard a pattering noise, and there he was on deck
behind me and close beside his mistress. The boat and rower had
vanished–under the ship’s stern, as I supposed, but now I have my
doubts. I saw no more of them, anyhow.

“By this time Affonzo was reading her letter. The crowd by the water’s
edge had found a boat at length–how, I know not; but it was a very
little one, holding but six men besides the one rower, and then
over-laden. They pulled towards us and hailed just as the lady took the
master’s promise and went down to seek her cabin: and one of the men
stood up, a tall gentleman with a chain about his neck. Affonzo went to
the side to parley with him.

“The tall man with the chain cried out that he was mayor or provost–
I forget which–and the woman must be given up as a proved witch who had
laid the wickedest spells upon many citizens of Dunquerque. All this he
had to shout; for Affonzo, who–either ignorantly or by choice–was
already on Satan’s side, would not suffer him to come aboard or even
nigh the ship’s ladder. Moreover, he drove below so many of our crew as
had gathered to the side to listen, commanding me with curses to see to
this. Yet I heard something of the mayor’s accusation; which was that
the woman had come to Dunquerque, travelling as a great lady with a
retinue of servants and letters of commendation to the religious houses,
on which and on many private persons of note she had bestowed relics of
our Lord and the saints, pretending it was for a penance that she
journeyed and gave the bounties: but that, at a certain hour, these
relics had turned into toads, adders, and all manner of abominable
offal, defiling the holy places and private shrines, in some instances
the very church altars: that upon the outcry her retinue had vanished,
and she herself taken to flight as we saw her running.

“At all this Affonzo scoffed, threatening to sink the boat if further
troubled with their importunities. And, the provost using threats in
return, he gave order to let weigh incontinently and clear with the
tide, which by this was turned to ebb. And so, amid curses which we
answered by display of our guns, we stood out from that port. Of the
master’s purpose I make no guess. Either he was bewitched, or the woman
had taken him with her beauty, and he dreamed of finding favour with
her.

“This only I know, that on the second morning, she standing on deck
beside him, he offered some familiar approach; whereupon the dog flew at
him, and I believe would have killed him, but was in time called off by
her. Within an hour we met with the weather which after three days
drove us ashore. Now whether Affonzo suspected her true nature or not–
as I know he had taken a great fear of her–I never had time to
discover. But I know her for a witch, and for a witch I tried to make
away with her. For the rest, may God pardon me!”

All this the man uttered not as I have written it, but with many gasping
interruptions; and afterwards lay back as one dead. Before I could make
head or tail of my wonder, I heard cries and a clatter from the
courtyard, and ran out to see what was amiss.

In the courtyard I found my Master with a dozen men closing the bolts of
the great gate against a company who rained blows and hammerings on the
outside of it. My Master had dismounted, and while he called his orders
the blood ran down his face from a cut above the forehead. As for the
smoking horses on which they had ridden in, these stood huddling,
rubbing shoulders, and facing all ways like a knot of frightened colts.

All the bolts being shut, my Master steps to the grille and speaking
through it, “Saint Aubyn,” says he, “between gentlemen there are fitter
ways to dispute than brawling with servants. I am no thief or robber;
as you may satisfy yourself by search and question, bringing, if you
will, Mr. Godolphin and three men to help you under protection of my
word. If you will not, then I am ready for you at any time of your
choosing. But I warn you that, if any man offers further violence to my
gate, I send Master Tonkin to melt the lead, of which I have good store.
So make your choice.”

He said it in English, and few of those who heard him could understand.
And after a moment Saint Aubyn, who was a very courteous gentleman for
all his hot temper, made answer in the same tongue.

“If I cannot take your word, Pengersick,” said he, “be sure no searching
will satisfy me. But that some of your men have made off with the
goods, with or without your knowledge, I am convinced.”

“If they have–” my Master was beginning, when Godolphin’s sneering
laugh broke in on his words from the other side of the gate.

“‘If!‘ ‘If!‘ There are too many if’s in this parley for my
stomach. Look ye, Pengersick, will you give up the goods or no?”

Upon this my Master changed his tone. “As for Mr. Godolphin, I have
this only to say: the goods are neither his nor mine; they are not in my
keeping, nor do I believe them stolen by any of my men. For the words
that have passed between us to-day, he knows me well enough to be sure I
shall hold him to account, and that soon: and to that assurance
commending him, I wish you both a very good day.”

So having said, he strolled off towards the stables, leaving me to
listen at the gate, where by-and-by, after some disputing, I had the
pleasure to hear our besiegers draw off and trot away towards Godolphin.
Happening to take a glance upwards at the house-front, I caught sight of
the strange lady at the window of the guest-chamber, which faced towards
the south-east. She was leaning forth and gazing after them: but,
hearing my Master’s footsteps as he came from the stables, she withdrew
her eyes from the road and nodded down at him gaily.

But as he went indoors to join her at breakfast I ran after, and
catching him in the porch, besought him to have his wound seen to.
“And after that,” said I, “there is another wounded man who needs your
attention. Unless you take his deposition quickly, I fear, sir, it may
be too late.”

His eyebrows went up at this, but contracted again upon the twinge of
his wound. “I will attend to him first,” said he shortly, and led the
way to the strong room. “Hullo!” was his next word, as he came to the
door–for in my perturbation and hurry I had forgotten to lock it.

“He is too weak to move,” I stammered, as my poor excuse.

“Nevertheless it was not well done,” he replied, pushing past me.

The prisoner lay on his pallet, gasping, with his eyes wide open in a
rigor. “Take her away!” he panted. “Take her away! She has been
here!”

“Hey?” I cried: but my Master turned on me sharply. To this day I know
not how much of evil he suspected.

“I will summon you if I need you. For the present you will leave us
here alone.”

Nor can I tell what passed between them for the next half-an-hour.
Only that when he came forth my Master’s face was white and set beneath
its dry smear of blood. Passing me, who waited at the end of the
corridor, he said, but without meeting my eyes:

“Go to him. The end is near.”

I went to him. He lay pretty much as I had left him, in a kind of
stupor; out of which, within the hour, he started suddenly and began to
rave. Soon I had to send for a couple of our stablemen; and not too
soon. For by this he was foaming at the mouth and gnashing, the man in
him turned to beast and trying to bite, so that we were forced to strap
him to his bed. I shall say no more of this, the most horrible sight of
my life. The end came quietly, about six in the evening: and we buried
the poor wretch that night in the orchard under the chapel wall.

All that day, as you may guess, I saw nothing of the strange lady.
And on the morrow until dinner-time I had but a glimpse of her.
This was in the forenoon. She stood, with her hound beside her, in an
embrasure of the wall, looking over the sea: to the eye a figure so
maidenly and innocent and (in a sense) forlorn that I recalled Gil
Perez’ tale as the merest frenzy, and wondered how I had come to listen
to it with any belief. Her seaward gaze would be passing over the very
spot where we had laid him: only a low wall hiding the freshly turned
earth. My Master had ridden off early: I could guess upon what errand.

He returned shortly after noon, unhurt and looking like a man satisfied
with his morning’s work. And at dinner, watching his demeanour
narrowly, I was satisfied that either he had not heard the prisoner’s
tale or had rejected it utterly. For he took his seat in the gayest
spirits, and laughed and talked with the stranger throughout the meal.
And afterwards, having fetched an old lute which had been his mother’s,
he sat and watched her fit new strings to it, rallying her over her
tangle. But when she had it tuned and, touching it softly, began the
first of those murmuring heathenish songs to which I have since listened
so often, pausing in my work, but never without a kind of terror at
beauty so far above my comprehending–why, then my Master laughed no
more.

He had met Godolphin that morning and run him through the thigh.
And that bitterest enemy of ours still wore a crutch a month later, when
we faced Master Porson before the Commissioner in Saint Aubyn’s house at
Clowance. At that conference (not to linger over the time between) the
Commissioner showed himself pardonably suspicious of us all. He was a
dry, foxy-faced man, who spoke little and at times seemed scarce to be
listening; but rather turning over some deeper matters in his brain
behind his grey-coloured eyes. But at length, Mr. Saint Aubyn having
twice or thrice made mention of the Lady Alicia and her presence on the
beach, this Sir Nicholas looked up at me sharply, and said he–”By all
accounts this lady was a passenger shipped by the master at Dunquerque.
It seems she was a foreign lady of birth, bearing letters commendatory
to the Court of Lisbon.”

“That was his story of it,” Master Porson assented. “I was below and
busy with the cargo at the time, and knew nothing of her presence on
board until we had cleared the harbour.”

“And at this moment she is a guest of Mr. Milliton’s at Pengersick?”
pursued Sir Nicholas, still with his eyes upon mine. I bowed, feeling
mightily uneasy. “It is most necessary that I should take her
evidence–and Mr. Milliton’s. In all the statements received by me
Mr. Milliton bears no small part: his house lies at no distance from
Gunwallo Cove: and I have heard much of your Cornish courtesy.
It appears to me singular, therefore, that although I have been these
four days in his neighbourhood no invitation has reached me to visit
his house and have audience with him: and it argues small courtesy that
on coming here to-day in full expectation of seeing him, I should be
fobbed off with a deputy.”

“Though but a deputy,” I protested, “I have my Master’s entire
confidence.”

“No doubt,” said he drily. “But it would be more to the point if you
had mine. It is imperative that I see Mr. Milliton of Pengersick and
hear his evidence, as also this Lady Alicia’s: and you may bear him my
respects and say that I intend to call upon him to-morrow.”

I bowed. It was all I could do: since the truth (for different reasons)
could neither be told to him nor to the others. And the truth was that
for two days my Master and the strange lady had not been seen at
Pengersick! They had vanished, and two horses with them: but when and
how I neither knew nor dared push inquiries to discover. Only the
porter could have told me had he chosen; but when I questioned him he
looked cunning, shook his head, and as good as hinted that I would be
wiser to question nobody, but go about my business as if I shared the
secret.

And so I did, imitating the porter’s manner even before Dame Tresize,
the housekeeper. But it rankled that, even while instructing me–as he
did on the eve of his departing–in the part I was to play at Clowance,
my Master had chosen to shut me out of this part of his confidence.
And now on the road home from Clowance I carried an anxious heart as
well as a sore. To tell the truth–that my Master was away–I had not
been able, knowing how prompt Saint Aubyn and Godolphin might be to take
the advantage and pay us an unwelcome visit. “And indeed,” thought I,
“if my Master hides one thing from me, why not another? The stuff may
indeed be stored with us: though I will not believe it without proof.”
The Commissioner would come, beyond a doubt. To discover my Master’s
absence would quicken his suspicions: to deny him admittance would
confirm them.

I reached home, yet could get no sleep for my quandary. But a little
before the dawning, while I did on my clothes, there came a knocking at
the gate followed by a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard; and hurrying
down, with but pause to light my lantern, I found my Master there and
helping the strange lady to dismount, with the porter and two sleepy
grooms standing by and holding torches. Beneath the belly of the lady’s
horse stood her hound, his tongue lolling and his coat a cake of mire.
The night had been chilly and the nostrils of the hard-ridden beasts
made a steam among the lights we held, while above us the upper frontage
of the house stood out clear between the growing daylight and the waning
moon poised above the courtlege-wall in the south-west.

“Hey! Is that Paschal?” My Master turned as one stiff with riding.
His face was ghastly pale, yet full of a sort of happiness: and I saw
that his clothes were disordered and his boots mired to their tops.
“Good luck!” cried he, handing the lady down. “We can have supper at
once.”

“Supper?” I repeated it after him.

“Or breakfast–which you choose. Have the lights lit in the hall, and a
table spread. My lady will eat and drink before going to her room.”

“‘My lady’?” was my echo again.

“Just so–my lady, and my wife, and henceforward your Mistress.
Lead the way, if you please! Afterwards I will talk.”

I did as I was ordered: lit the lights about the dais, spread the cloth
with my own hands, fetched forth the cold meats and–for he would have
no servants aroused–waited upon them in silence and poured the wine,
all in a whirl of mind. My Mistress (as I must now call her) showed no
fatigue, though her skirts were soiled as if they had been dragged
through a sea of mud. Her eyes sparkled and her bosom heaved as she
watched my Master, who ate greedily. But beyond the gallant words with
which he pledged her welcome home to Pengersick nothing was said until,
his hunger put away, he pushed back his chair and commanded me to tell
what had happened at Clowance: which I did, pointing out the ticklish
posture of affairs, and that for a certainty the Commissioner might be
looked for in within a few hours.

“Well,” said my Master, “I see no harm in his coming, nor any profit.
The goods are not with us: never were with us: and there’s the end of
it.”

But I was looking from him to my Mistress, who with bent brows sat
studying the table before her.

“Master Paschal,” said she after a while, as one awaking from thought,
“has done his business zealously and well. I will go to my room now and
rest: but let me be aroused when this visitor comes, for I believe that
I can deal with him.” And she rose and walked away to the stair, with
the hound at her heels.

A little later I saw my Master to his room: and after that had some
hours of leisure in which to fret my mind as well over what had happened
as what was likely to. It was hard on noon when the Commissioner
arrived: and with him Master Porson. I led them at once to the hall
and, setting wine before them, sent to learn when my Master and Mistress
would be pleased to give audience. The lady came down almost at once,
looking very rosy and fresh. She held a packet of papers, and having
saluted the Commissioner graciously, motioned me to seat myself at the
table with paper and pen.

Sir Nicholas began with some question touching her business on board the
Saint Andrew: and in answer she drew a paper from the top of her
packet. It was spotted with sea-water, but (as I could see) yet
legible. The Commissioner studied it, showed it to Master Porson (who
nodded), and handing it back politely, begged her for some particulars
concerning the wreck.

Upon this she told the story clearly and simply. There had been a three
days’ tempest: the ship had gone ashore in such and such a manner: a
great part of the cargo had undoubtedly been landed. It was on the
beach when she had left it under conduct of Mr. Milliton, who had shown
her great kindness. On whomsoever its disappearance might be charged,
of her host’s innocence she could speak.

My Master appearing just now saluted the Commissioner and gave his
version very readily.

“You may search my cellars,” he wound up, “and, if you please,
interrogate my servants. My livery is known by everyone in this
neighbourhood to be purple and tawny. The seamen can tell you if any of
their assailants wore these colours.”

“They assure me,” said Sir Nicholas, “that the night was too dark for
them to observe colours: and for that matter to disguise them would have
been a natural precaution. There was a wounded man brought to your
house–one Gil Perez, the boatswain.”

“He is dead, as you doubtless know, of a bite received from this lady’s
hound as he was attacking her with a knife.”

“But why, madam”–the factor turned to my Mistress–”should this man
have attacked you?”

She appeared to be expecting this question, and drew from her packet a
second paper, which she unfolded quietly and spread on the table, yet
kept her palm over the writing on it while she answered, “Those who
engage upon missions of State must look to meet with attacks, but not to
be asked to explain them. The mob at Dunquerque pursued me upon a
ridiculous charge, yet was wisely incited by men who invented it,
knowing the true purpose of my mission.” She glanced from the
Commissioner to Master Porson. “Sir Nicholas Fleming–surely I have
heard his name spoken, as of a good friend to the Holy Father and not
too anxious for the Emperor’s marriage with Mary Tudor?”
The Commissioner started in his chair, while she turned serenely upon
his companion. “And Master Porson,” she continued, “as a faithful
servant of His Majesty of Portugal will needs be glad to see a princess
of Portugal take Mary Tudor’s place. Eh?”–for they were eyeing each
the other like two detected schoolboys–”It would seem, sirs, that
though you came together, you were better friends than you guessed.
Glance your eye, Master Porson, over this paper which I shall presently
entrust to you for furtherance; and you will agree with Sir Nicholas
that the prudent course for both of you is to forget, on leaving this
house, that any such person as I was on board the Saint Andrew.“

The two peered into the parchment and drew back. “The Emperor–” I
heard the Commissioner mutter with an intake of breath.

“And, as you perceive, in his own handwriting.” She folded up the paper
and, replacing it, addressed my Master. “Your visitors, sir, deserve
some refreshment for their pains and courtesy.”

And that was the end of the conference. What that paper contained I
know as little as I know by what infernal sorcery it was prepared.
Master Porson folded it up tight in his hand, glancing dubiously at Sir
Nicholas. My lady stood smiling upon the both for a moment, then
dismissed me to the kitchens upon a pretended errand. They were gone
when I returned, nor did I again set eyes upon the Commissioner or the
factor. It is true that the Emperor did about this time break his
pledge with our King Henry and marry a princess of Portugal; and some of
high office in England were not sorry therefore. But of this enough.

As the days wore on and we heard no more of the wreck, my Master and
Mistress settled down to that retirement from the world which is by
custom allowed to the newly married, but which with them was to last to
the end. A life of love it was; but–God help us!–no life of
happiness; rather, in process of days, a life of torment. Can I tell
you how it was? At first to see them together was like looking through
a glass upon a picture; a picture gallant and beautiful yet removed
behind a screen and not of this world. Suppose now that by little and
little the glass began to be flawed, or the picture behind it to crumble
(you could not tell which) until when it smiled it smiled wryly, until
rocks toppled and figures fell askew, yet still kept up their pretence
of play against the distorted woodland. Nay, it was worse than this:
fifty times worse. For while the fair show tottered, my Master and
Mistress clung to their love; and yet it was just their love which kept
the foundations rocking.

They lived for each other. They neither visited nor received visits.
Yet they were often, and by degrees oftener, apart; my Master locked up
with his books, my Mistress roaming the walls with her hound or seated
by her lattice high on the seaward side of the castle. Sometimes (but
this was usually on moonlit nights or windless evenings when the sun
sank clear to view over our broad bay) she would take up her lute and
touch it to one of those outlandish love-chants with which she had first
wiled my Master’s heart to her. As time went on, stories came to us
that these chants, which fell so softly on the ears of us as we went
about the rooms and gardens, had been heard by fishermen riding by their
nets far in the offing–so far away (I have heard) as the Scillies; and
there were tales of men who, as they listened, had seen the ghosts of
drowned mariners rising and falling on the moon-rays, or floating with
their white faces thrown back while they drank in the music; yea, even
echoing the words of the song in whispers like the flutter of birds’
wings.

When first the word crept about that she was a witch I cannot certainly
say. But in time it did; and, what is more–though I will swear that no
word of Gil Perez’ confession ever passed my lips–the common folk soon
held it for a certainty that the cargo saved from the Saint Andrew had
been saved by her magic only; that the plate and rich stuffs seen by my
own eyes were but cheating simulacra, and had turned into rubbish at
midnight, scarce an hour before the assault on the Portuguese.

I have wondered since if ’twas this rumour and some belief in it which
held Messrs. Saint Aubyn and Godolphin from offering any further attack
on us. You might say that it was open to them, so believing, to have
denounced her publicly. But in our country Holy Church had little
hold–scarce more than the King’s law itself in such matters; and within
my memory it has always come easier to us to fear witch-craft than to
denounce it. Also (and it concerns my tale) the three years which
followed the stranding of the Saint Andrew were remarkable for a great
number of wrecks upon our coast. In that short time we of our parish
and the men of St. Hilary upon our north were between us favoured with
no fewer than fourteen; the most of them vessels of good burden. Of any
hand in bringing them ashore I know our gentry to have been innocent.
Still, there were pickings; and finding that my Master held aloof from
all share in such and (as far as could be) held his servants aloof, our
neighbours, though not accepting this for quittance, forbore to press
the affair of the Saint Andrew further than by spreading injurious
tales and whispers.

The marvel was that we of Pengersick (who reaped nothing of this
harvest) fell none the less under suspicion of decoying the vessels
ashore. More than once in my dealings with the fishermen and tradesmen
of Market Jew, I happened on hints of this; but nothing which could be
taken hold of until one day a certain Peter Chynoweth of that town,
coming drunk to Pengersick with a basket of fish, blurted out the tale.
Said he, after I had beaten him down to a reasonable price, “Twould be
easy enough, one would think, to spare an honest man a groat of the
fortune Pengersick makes on these dark nights.”

“Thou lying thief!” said I. “What new slander is this?”

“Come, come,” says he, looking roguish; “that won’t do for me that have
seen the false light on Cuddan Point more times than I can count; and so
has every fisherman in the bay.”

Well, I kicked him through the gate for it, and flung his basket after
him; but the tale could not be so dismissed. “It may be,” thought I,
“some one of Pengersick has engaged upon this wickedness on his own
account”; and for my Master’s credit I resolved to keep watch.

I took therefore the porter into my secret, who agreed to let me through
the gate towards midnight without telling a soul. I took a sheepskin
with me and a poignard for protection; and for a week, from midnight to
dawn, I played sentinel on Cuddan Point, walking to and fro, or
stretched under the lee of a rock whence I could not miss any light
shown on the headland, if Peter Chynoweth’s tale held any truth.

By the eighth trial I had pretty well made up my mind (and without
astonishment) that Peter Chynoweth was a liar. But scarcely had I
reached my post that night when, turning, I descried a radiance as of a
lantern, following me at some fifty paces. On the instant I gripped my
poignard and stepped behind a boulder. The light drew nearer, came, and
passed me. To my bewilderment it was no lantern, but an open flame,
running close along the turf and too low for anyone to be carrying it:
nor was the motion that of a light which a man carries.
Moreover, though it passed me within half-a-dozen yards and lit up the
stone I stood behind, I saw nobody and heard no footstep, though the
wind (which was south-westerly) blew from it to me. In this breeze the
flame quivered, though not violently but as it were a ball of fire
rolling with a flickering crest.

It went by, and I followed it at something above walking pace until upon
the very verge of the head-land, where I had no will to risk my neck, it
halted and began to be heaved up and down much like the poop-light of a
vessel at sea. In this play it continued for an hour at least; then it
came steadily back towards me by the way it had gone, and as it came I
ran upon it with my dagger. But it slipped by me, travelling at speed
towards the mainland; whither I pelted after it hot-foot, and so across
the fields towards Pengersick. Strain as I might, I could not overtake
it; yet contrived to keep it within view, and so well that I was bare a
hundred yards behind when it came under the black shadow of the castle
and without pause glided across the dry moat and so up the face of the
wall to my lady’s window, which there overhung. And into this window it
passed before my very eyes and vanished.

I know not what emboldened me, but from the porter’s lodge I went
straight up to my Master’s chamber, where (though the hour must have
been two in the morning or thereabouts) a light was yet burning.
Also–but this had become ordinary–a smell of burning gums and herbs
filled the passage leading to his door. He opened to my knock, and
stood before me in his dressing-gown of sables–a tall figure of a man
and youthful, though already beginning to stoop. Over his shoulder I
perceived the room swimming with coils of smoke which floated in their
wreaths from a brazier hard by the fireplace.

I think his first motion was to thrust me away; but I caught him by the
hand, and with many protestations broke into my tale, giving him no time
to forbid me. And presently he drew me inside, and shutting the door,
stood upright by the table, facing me with his fingers on the rim as if
they rested there for support.

“Paschal,” said he, when at length I drew back, “this must not come to
my lady’s ears. She has been ailing of late.”

“Ay, sir, and long since: of a disease past your curing.”

“God help us! I hope not,” said he; then broke out violently: “She is
innocent, Paschal; innocent as a child!”

“Innocent!” cried I, in a voice which showed how little I believed.

“Paschal,” he went on, “you are my servant, but my friend also, I hope.
Nay, nay, I know. I swear to you, then, these things do but happen in
her sleep. In her waking senses she is mine, as one day she shall be
mine wholly. But at night, when her will is dissolved in sleep, the
evil spirit wakes and goes questing after its master.”

“Mahound?” I stammered, quaking.

“Be it Satan himself,” said he, very low and resolute, “I will win her
from him, though my own soul be the ransom.”

“Dear my Master,” I began, and would have implored him on my knees; but
he pointed to the door. “I will win her,” he repeated. “What you have
seen to-night happens more rarely now. Moreover, the summer is
beginning–”

He paused: yet I had gathered his meaning. “There will be less peril
for the ships for a while,” said I.

Said he: “To them she intends no harm. It is for her master the light
waves. Paschal, I am an unhappy man!” He flung a hand to his forehead,
but recovering himself peered at me under the shadow of it. “If you
could watch–often–as you have done to-night–you might protect others
from seeing–”

The wisdom of this at least I saw, and gave him my promise readily.
Upon this understanding (for no more could be had) I withdrew me.

The next day, therefore, I moved my bed to a turret-chamber on the angle
of the south-eastern wall whence I could keep my lady’s window in view.
I was never a man to need much sleep: but if, through the year which
followed, the apparition escaped once or twice without my cognisance, I
dare take oath this was the extent of it. It appeared more rarely, as
my Master had promised: and in the end (I think) scarce above once a
month. In form it never varied from the cresseted globe of flame I had
first seen, and always it took the path across the fields towards Cuddan
Point. No sound went with it, or announced its going or return: and
while it was absent, my lady’s chamber would be utterly dark and silent.
My custom was not to follow it (which I had proved to be useless), but
to let myself out and patrol the walls, satisfying myself that no
watchers lurked about the castle. I understood now that Pengersick was
reported throughout the neighbourhood to be haunted: and such a report
is not the worst protection. These vague tales kept aloof the country
people who, but for them, had almost certainly happened on the secret.
And night after night while I watched, my Master wrestled with the Evil
One in his room.

The last time I saw the apparition was on the night of May 10th, 1529,
more than three years after my lady’s first coming to Pengersick.
I was prepared for it: for she had been singing at her window a great
part of the afternoon, and I had learnt to be warned by this mood.
The night was a dark one, with flying clouds and a stiff breeze blowing
up from the south-east. The flame left my lady’s window at the usual
hour–a few minutes after midnight–but returned some while before its
due time. In ordinary it would be away for an hour and a half, or from
that to two hours, but this night I had scarcely begun my rounds before
I saw it returning across the fields. Nor was this the only surprise.
For as I watched it up the wall and saw it gain my lady’s window, I
heard the hound within lift up its voice in a long, shuddering howl.

I lost no time, but made my way to my Master’s room. He, too, had heard
the dog’s howl, and was strangely perturbed. “It means something.
It means something,” he kept repeating. He had already run to his
wife’s chamber, but found her in a deep slumber and the hound (which
always slept on the floor at her bed’s foot) composing itself to sleep
again, with jowl dropped on its fore-paws.

The next morning I had fixed to ride into the Market Jew to fetch a
packet of books which was waiting there for my Master. But at the
entrance of the town I found the people in great commotion, the cause of
which turned out to be a group of Turk men gathered at the hither end of
the causeway leading to the Mount. One told me they were Moslems (which
indeed was apparent at first sight) and that their ship had run ashore
that night, under the Mount; but with how much damage was doubtful.
She lay within sight, in a pretty safe position, and not so badly fixed
but I guessed the next tide would float her if her bottom were not
broken. The Moslems (nine in all) had rowed ashore in their boat and
landed on the causeway; but with what purpose they had no chance to
explain: for the inhabitants, catching sight of their knives and
scymeters, could believe in nothing short of an intent to murder and
plunder; and taking courage in numbers, had gathered (men and women) to
the causeway-head to oppose them. To be sure these fears had some
warrant in the foreigners’ appearance: who with their turbans, tunics,
dark faces and black naked legs made up a show which Market Jew had
never known before nor (I dare say) will again.

Nor had the mildness of their address any effect but to raise a fresh
commotion. For, their leader advancing with outstretched hands and
making signals that he intended no mischief but rather sued for
assistance, at once a cry went up, “The Plague!” “The Plague!” at which
I believe the crowd would have scattered like sheep had not a few sturdy
volunteers with pikes and boat-hooks forbidden his nearer approach.

Into this knot the conference had locked itself when I rode up and–the
crowd making way for me–addressed the strangers in the lingua Franca,
explaining that my Master of Pengersick was a magistrate and would be
forward to help them either with hospitality or in lending aid to get
their ship afloat; further that they need have no apprehension of the
crowd, which had opposed them in fear, not in churlishness; yet it might
be wise for the main body to stay and keep guard over the cargo while
their spokesman went with me to Pengersick.

To this their leader at once consented; and we presently set forth
together, he walking by my horse with an agile step and that graceful
bearing which I had not seen since my days of travel: a bearded swarthy
man, extraordinarily handsome in Moorish fashion and distinguished from
his crew not only by authority as patron of the ship, but by a natural
dignity. I judged him about forty. Me he treated with courtesy, yet
with a reticence which seemed to say he reserved his speech for my
Master. Of the wreck he said nothing except that his ship had been by
many degrees out of her bearings: and knowing that the Moorish disasters
in Spain had thrown many of their chiefs into the trade of piracy I was
contented to smoke such an adventurer in this man, and set him down for
one better at fighting than at navigation.

With no more suspicion than this I reached Pengersick and, bestowing the
stranger in the hall, went off to seek my Master. For the change that
came over my dear lord’s face as he heard my errand I was in no way
prepared. It was terrible.

“Paschal,” he cried, sinking into a chair and spreading both hands
helplessly on the table before him, “it is he! Her time is come, and
mine!”

It was in vain that I reasoned, protesting (as I believed) that the
stranger was but a chance pirate cast ashore by misadventure; and as
vain that, his fears infecting me, I promised to go down and get rid of
the fellow on some pretence.

“No,” he insisted, “the hour is come. I must face it: and what is more,
Paschal, I shall win. Another time I shall be no better prepared.
Bring him to my room and then go and tell my lady that I wish to speak
with her.”

Posted under Arthur Quiller-Couch

I

I had the honour of commanding my Regiment, the Moray Highlanders,
on the 16th of June, 1815, when the late Ensign David Marie Joseph
Mackenzie met his end in the bloody struggle of Quatre Bras (his first
engagement). He fell beside the colours, and I gladly bear witness
that he had not only borne himself with extreme gallantry, but
maintained, under circumstances of severest trial, a coolness which
might well have rewarded me for my help in procuring the lad’s
commission. And yet at the moment I could scarcely regret his death,
for he went into action under a suspicion so dishonouring that, had
it been proved, no amount of gallantry could have restored him to the
respect of his fellows. So at least I believed, with three of his
brother officers who shared the secret. These were Major William Ross
(my half-brother), Captain Malcolm Murray, and Mr. Ronald Braintree
Urquhart, then our senior ensign. Of these, Mr. Urquhart fell two days
later, at Waterloo, while steadying his men to face that heroic shock
in which Pack’s skeleton regiments were enveloped yet not overwhelmed
by four brigades of the French infantry. From the others I received at
the time a promise that the accusation against young Mackenzie should
be wiped off the slate by his death, and the affair kept secret
between us. Since then, however, there has come to me an explanation
which–though hard indeed to credit–may, if true, exculpate the lad.
I laid it before the others, and they agreed that if, in spite of
precautions, the affair should ever come to light, the explanation
ought also in justice to be forthcoming; and hence I am writing this
memorandum.

It was in the late September of 1814 that I first made acquaintance
with David Mackenzie. A wound received in the battle of Salamanca–a
shattered ankle–had sent me home invalided, and on my partial
recovery I was appointed to command the 2nd Battalion of my Regiment,
then being formed at Inverness. To this duty I was equal; but my ankle
still gave trouble (the splinters from time to time working through
the flesh), and in the late summer of 1814 I obtained leave of absence
with my step-brother, and spent some pleasant weeks in cruising and
fishing about the Moray Firth. Finding that my leg bettered by this
idleness, we hired a smaller boat and embarked on a longer excursion,
which took us almost to the south-west end of Loch Ness.

Here, on September 18th, and pretty late in the afternoon, we were
overtaken by a sudden squall, which carried away our mast (we found
afterwards that it had rotted in the step), and put us for some
minutes in no little danger; for my brother and I, being inexpert
seamen, did not cut the tangle away, as we should have done, but made
a bungling attempt to get the mast on board, with the rigging and
drenched sail; and thereby managed to knock a hole in the side of
the boat, which at once began to take in water. This compelled us to
desist and fall to baling with might and main, leaving the raffle and
jagged end of the mast to bump against us at the will of the waves.
In short, we were in a highly unpleasant predicament, when a coble or
row-boat, carrying one small lug-sail, hove out of the dusk to our
assistance. It was manned by a crew of three, of whom the master
(though we had scarce light enough to distinguish features) hailed us
in a voice which was patently a gentleman’s. He rounded up, lowered
sail, and ran his boat alongside; and while his two hands were cutting
us free of our tangle, inquired very civilly if we were strangers. We
answered that we were, and desired him to tell us of the nearest place
alongshore where we might land and find a lodging for the night, as
well as a carpenter to repair our damage.

“In any ordinary case,” said he, “I should ask you to come aboard and
home with me. But my house lies five miles up the lake; your boat is
sinking, and the first thing is to beach her. It happens that you are
but half a mile from Ardlaugh and a decent carpenter who can answer
all requirements. I think, if I stand by you, the thing can be done;
and afterwards we will talk of supper.”

By diligent baling we were able, under his direction, to bring our
boat to a shingly beach, over which a light shone warm in a cottage
window. Our hail was quickly answered by a second light. A lantern
issued from the building, and we heard the sound of footsteps.

“Is that you, Donald?” cried our rescuer (as I may be permitted to
call him).

Before an answer could be returned, we saw that two men were
approaching; of whom the one bearing the lantern was a grizzled old
carlin with bent knees and a stoop of the shoulders. His companion
carried himself with a lighter step. It was he who advanced to salute
us, the old man holding the light obediently; and the rays revealed to
us a slight, up-standing youth, poorly dressed, but handsome, and with
a touch of pride in his bearing.

“Good evening, gentlemen.” He lifted his bonnet politely, and turned
to our rescuer. “Good evening, Mr. Gillespie,” he said–I thought more
coldly. “Can I be of any service to your friends?”

Mr. Gillespie’s manner had changed suddenly at sight of the young man,
whose salutation he acknowledged more coldly and even more curtly
than it had been given. “I can scarcely claim them as my friends,” he
answered. “They are two gentlemen, strangers in these parts, who have
met with an accident to their boat: one so serious that I brought them
to the nearest landing, which happened to be Donald’s.” He shortly
explained our mishap, while the young man took the lantern in hand and
inspected the damage with Donald.

“There is nothing,” he announced, “which cannot be set right in a
couple of hours; but we must wait till morning. Meanwhile if, as I
gather, you have no claim on these gentlemen, I shall beg them to be
my guests for the night.”

We glanced at Mr. Gillespie, whose manners seemed to have deserted
him. He shrugged his shoulders. “Your house is the nearer,” said he,
“and the sooner they reach a warm fire the better for them after their
drenching.” And with that he lifted his cap to us, turned abruptly,
and pushed off his own boat, scarcely regarding our thanks.

A somewhat awkward pause followed as we stood on the beach, listening
to the creak of the thole-pins in the departing boat. After a minute
our new acquaintance turned to us with a slightly constrained laugh.

“Mr. Gillespie omitted some of the formalities,” said he. “My name is
Mackenzie–David Mackenzie; and I live at Ardlaugh Castle, scarcely
half a mile up the glen behind us. I warn you that its hospitality is
rude, but to what it affords you are heartily welcome.”

He spoke with a high, precise courtliness which contrasted oddly with
his boyish face (I guessed his age at nineteen or twenty), and still
more oddly with his clothes, which were threadbare and patched in
many places, yet with a deftness which told of a woman’s care. We
introduced ourselves by name, and thanked him, with some expressions
of regret at inconveniencing (as I put it, at hazard) the family at
the Castle.

“Oh!” he interrupted, “I am sole master there. I have no parents
living, no family, and,” he added, with a slight sullenness which I
afterwards recognised as habitual, “I may almost say, no friends:
though to be sure, you are lucky enough to have one fellow-guest
to-night–the minister of the parish, a Mr. Saul, and a very worthy
man.”

He broke off to give Donald some instructions about the boat, watched
us while we found our plaids and soaked valises, and then took the
lantern from the old man’s hand. “I ought to have explained,” said
he, “that we have neither cart here nor carriage: indeed, there is no
carriage-road. But Donald has a pony.”

He led the way a few steps up the beach, and then halted, perceiving
my lameness for the first time. “Donald, fetch out the pony. Can you
ride bareback?” he asked: “I fear there’s no saddle but an old piece
of sacking.” In spite of my protestations the pony was led forth; a
starved little beast, on whose over-sharp ridge I must have cut a
sufficiently ludicrous figure when hoisted into place with the valises
slung behind me.

The procession set out, and I soon began to feel thankful for my seat,
though I took no ease in it. For the road climbed steeply from the
cottage, and at once began to twist up the bottom of a ravine so
narrow that we lost all help of the young moon. The path, indeed,
resembled the bed of a torrent, shrunk now to a trickle of water, the
voice of which ran in my ears while our host led the way, springing
from boulder to boulder, avoiding pools, and pausing now and then to
hold his lantern over some slippery place. The pony followed with
admirable caution, and my brother trudged in the rear and took his cue
from us. After five minutes of this the ground grew easier and at the
same time steeper, and I guessed that we were slanting up the hillside
and away from the torrent at an acute angle. The many twists and
angles, and the utter darkness (for we were now moving between trees)
had completely baffled my reckoning when–at the end of twenty
minutes, perhaps–Mr. Mackenzie halted and allowed me to come up with
him.

I was about to ask the reason of this halt when a ray of his lantern
fell on a wall of masonry; and with a start almost laughable I knew
we had arrived. To come to an entirely strange house at night is an
experience which holds some taste of mystery even for the oldest
campaigner; but I have never in my life received such a shock as this
building gave me–naked, unlit, presented to me out of a darkness
in which I had imagined a steep mountain scaur dotted with dwarfed
trees–a sudden abomination of desolation standing, like the
prophet’s, where it ought not. No light showed on the side where we
stood–the side over the ravine; only one pointed turret stood out
against the faint moonlight glow in the upper sky: but feeling our way
around the gaunt side of the building, we came to a back court-yard
and two windows lit. Our host whistled, and helped me to dismount.

In an angle of the court a creaking door opened. A woman’s voice
cried, “That will be be you, Ardlaugh, and none too early! The
minister–”

She broke off, catching sight of us. Our host stepped hastily to the
door and began a whispered conversation. We could hear that she
was protesting, and began to feel awkward enough. But whatever her
objections were, her master cut them short.

“Come in, sirs,” he invited us: “I warned you that the fare would be
hard, but I repeat that you are welcome.”

To our surprise and, I must own, our amusement, the woman caught up
his words with new protestations, uttered this time at the top of her
voice.

“The fare hard? Well, it might not please folks accustomed to city
feasts; but Ardlaugh was not yet without a joint of venison in the
larder and a bottle of wine, maybe two, maybe three, for any guest its
master chose to make welcome. It was ‘an ill bird that ‘filed his own
nest’”–with more to this effect, which our host tried in vain to
interrupt.

“Then I will lead you to your rooms,” he said, turning to us as soon
as she paused to draw breath.

“Indeed, Ardlaugh, you will do nothing of the kind.” She ran into the
kitchen, and returned holding high a lighted torch–a grey-haired
woman with traces of past comeliness, overlaid now by an air of worry,
almost of fear. But her manner showed only a defiant pride as she led
us up the uncarpeted stairs, past old portraits sagging and rotting in
their frames, through bleak corridors, where the windows were patched
and the plastered walls discoloured by fungus. Once only she halted.
“It will be a long way to your appartments. A grand house!” She had
faced round on us, and her eyes seemed to ask a question of ours. “I
have known it filled,” she added–”filled with guests, and the
drink and fiddles never stopping for a week. You will see it better
to-morrow. A grand house!”

I will confess that, as I limped after this barbaric woman and her
torch, I felt some reasonable apprehensions of the bedchamber towards
which they were escorting me. But here came another surprise. The room
was of moderate size, poorly furnished, indeed, but comfortable and
something more. It bore traces of many petty attentions, even–in its
white dimity curtains and valances–of an attempt at daintiness. The
sight of it brought quite a pleasant shock after the dirt and disarray
of the corridor. Nor was the room assigned to my brother one whit less
habitable. But if surprised by all this, I was fairly astounded
to find in each room a pair of candles lit–and quite recently
lit–beside the looking-glass, and an ewer of hot water standing, with
a clean towel upon it, in each wash-hand basin. No sooner had the
woman departed than I visited my brother and begged him (while he
unstrapped his valise) to explain this apparent miracle. He could only
guess with me that the woman had been warned of our arrival by the
noise of footsteps in the court-yard, and had dispatched a servant by
some back stairs to make ready for us.

Our valises were, fortunately, waterproof. We quickly exchanged our
damp clothes for dry ones, and groped our way together along the
corridors, helped by the moon, which shone through their uncurtained
windows, to the main staircase. Here we came on a scent of roasting
meat–appetising to us after our day in the open air–and at the foot
found our host waiting for us. He had donned his Highland dress of
ceremony–velvet jacket, phillabeg and kilt, with the tartan of
his clan–and looked (I must own) extremely well in it, though the
garments had long since lost their original gloss. An apology for our
rough touring suits led to some few questions and replies about the
regimental tartan of the Morays, in the history of which he was
passably well informed.

Thus chatting, we entered the great hall of Ardlaugh Castle–a tall,
but narrow and ill-proportioned apartment, having an open timber roof,
a stone-paved floor, and walls sparsely decorated with antlers and
round targes–where a very small man stood warming his back at
an immense fireplace. This was the Reverend Samuel Saul, whose
acquaintance we had scarce time to make before a cracked gong summoned
us to dinner in the adjoining room.

The young Laird of Ardlaugh took his seat in a roughly carved chair
of state at the head of the table; but before doing so treated me to
another surprise by muttering a Latin grace and crossing himself. Up
to now I had taken it for granted he was a member of the Scottish
Kirk. I glanced at the minister in some mystification; but he, good
man, appeared to have fallen into a brown study, with his eyes
fastened upon a dish of apples which adorned the centre of our
promiscuously furnished board.

Of the furniture of our meal I can only say that poverty and decent
appearance kept up a brave fight throughout. The table-cloth was
ragged, but spotlessly clean; the silver-ware scanty and worn with
high polishing. The plates and glasses displayed a noble range of
patterns, but were for the most part chipped or cracked. Each knife
had been worn to a point, and a few of them joggled in their handles.
In a lull of the talk I caught myself idly counting the darns in my
table-napkin. They were–if I remember–fourteen, and all exquisitely
stitched. The dinner, on the other hand, would have tempted men far
less hungry than we–grilled steaks of salmon, a roast haunch of
venison, grouse, a milk-pudding, and, for dessert, the dish of apples
already mentioned; the meats washed down with one wine only, but that
wine was claret, and beautifully sound. I should mention that we were
served by a grey-haired retainer, almost stone deaf, and as hopelessly
cracked as the gong with which he had beaten us to dinner. In the long
waits between the courses we heard him quarrelling outside with
the woman who had admitted us; and gradually–I know not how–the
conviction grew on me that they were man and wife, and the only
servants of our host’s establishment. To cover the noise of one of
their altercations I began to congratulate the Laird on the quality of
his venison, and put some idle question about his care for his deer.

“I have no deer-forest,” he answered. “Elspeth is my only
housekeeper.”

I had some reply on my lips, when my attention was distracted by a
sudden movement by the Rev. Samuel Saul. This honest man had, as we
shook hands in the great hall, broken into a flood of small talk.
On our way to the dining-room he took me, so to speak, by the
button-hole, and within the minute so drenched me with gossip about
Ardlaugh, its climate, its scenery, its crops, and the dimensions of
the parish, that I feared a whole evening of boredom lay before us.
But from the moment we seated ourselves at table he dropped to an
absolute silence. There are men, living much alone, who by habit
talk little during their meals; and the minister might be reserving
himself. But I had almost forgotten his presence when I heard a sharp
exclamation, and, looking across, saw him take from his lips his
wine-glass of claret and set it down with a shaking hand. The Laird,
too, had heard, and bent a darkly questioning glance on him. At once
the little man–whose face had turned to a sickly white–began to
stammer and excuse himself.

“It was nothing–a spasm. He would be better of it in a moment. No, he
would take no wine: a glass of water would set him right–he was more
used to drinking water,” he explained, with a small, nervous laugh.

Perceiving that our solicitude embarrassed him, we resumed our talk,
which now turned upon the last peninsular campaign and certain
engagements in which the Morays had borne part; upon the stability of
the French Monarchy, and the career (as we believed, at an end) of
Napoleon. On all these topics the Laird showed himself well informed,
and while preferring the part of listener (as became his youth) from
time to time put in a question which convinced me of his intelligence,
especially in military affairs.

The minister, though silent as before, had regained his colour; and we
were somewhat astonished when, the cloth being drawn and the company
left to its wine and one dish of dessert, he rose and announced that
he must be going. He was decidedly better, but (so he excused himself)
would feel easier at home in his own manse; and so, declining our
host’s offer of a bed, he shook hands and bade us good-night. The
Laird accompanied him to the door, and in his absence I fell to
peeling an apple, while my brother drummed with his fingers on the
table and eyed the faded hangings. I suppose that ten minutes elapsed
before we heard the young man’s footsteps returning through the
flagged hall and a woman’s voice uplifted.

“But had the minister any complaint, whatever–to ride off without a
word? She could answer for the collops–”

“Whist, woman! Have done with your clashin’, ye doited old fool!” He
slammed the door upon her, stepped to the table, and with a sullen
frown poured himself a glass of wine. His brow cleared as he drank it.
“I beg your pardon, gentlemen; but this indisposition of Mr. Saul has
annoyed me. He lives at the far end of the parish–a good seven miles
away–and I had invited him expressly to talk of parish affairs.”

“I believe,” said I, “you and he are not of the same religion?”

“Eh?” He seemed to be wondering how I had guessed. “No, I was bred a
Catholic. In our branch we have always held to the Old Religion. But
that doesn’t prevent my wishing to stand well with my neighbours and
do my duty towards them. What disheartens me is, they won’t see it.”
He pushed the wine aside, and for a while, leaning his elbows on the
table and resting his chin on his knuckles, stared gloomily before
him. Then, with sudden boyish indignation, he burst out: “It’s an
infernal shame; that’s it–an infernal shame! I haven’t been home here
a twelvemonth, and the people avoid me like a plague. What have I
done? My father wasn’t popular–in fact, they hated him. But so did I.
And he hated me, God knows: misused my mother, and wouldn’t endure me
in his presence. All my miserable youth I’ve been mewed up in a school
in England–a private seminary. Ugh? what a den it was, too! My mother
died calling for me–I was not allowed to come: I hadn’t seen her for
three years. And now, when the old tyrant is dead, and I come home
meaning–so help me!–to straighten things out and make friends–come
home, to the poverty you pretend not to notice, though it stares you
in the face from every wall–come home, only asking to make the best
of of it, live on good terms with my fellows, and be happy for the
first time in my life–damn them, they won’t fling me a kind look!
What have I done?–that’s what I want to know. The queer thing is,
they behaved more decently at first. There’s that Gillespie, who
brought you ashore: he came over the first week, offered me shooting,
was altogether as pleasant as could be. I quite took to the fellow.
Now, when we meet, he looks the other way! If he has anything against
me, he might at least explain: it’s all I ask. What have I done?”

Throughout this outburst I sat slicing my apple and taking now and
then a glance at the speaker. It was all so hotly and honestly boyish!
He only wanted justice. I know something of youngsters, and recognised
the cry. Justice! It’s the one thing every boy claims confidently as
his right, and probably the last thing on earth he will ever get.
And this boy looked so handsome, too, sitting in his father’s chair,
petulant, restive under a weight too heavy (as anyone could see) for
his age. I couldn’t help liking him.

My brother told me afterwards that I pounced like any
recruiting-sergeant. This I do not believe. But what, after a long
pause, I said was this: “If you are innocent or unconscious of
offending, you can only wait for your neighbours to explain
themselves. Meanwhile, why not leave them? Why not travel, for
instance?”

“Travel!” he echoed, as much as to say, “You ought to know, without my
telling, that I cannot afford it.”

“Travel,” I repeated; “see the world, rub against men of your age. You
might by the way do some fighting.”

He opened his eyes wide. I saw the sudden idea take hold of him, and
again I liked what I saw.

“If I thought–” He broke off. “You don’t mean–” he began, and broke
off again.

“I mean the Morays,” I said. “There may be difficulties; but at this
moment I cannot see any real ones.”

By this time he was gripping the arms of his chair. “If I thought–”
he harked back, and for the third time broke off. “What a fool I am!
It’s the last thing they ever put in a boy’s head at that infernal
school. If you will believe it, they wanted to make a priest of me!”

He sprang up, pushing back his chair. We carried our wine into the
great hall, and sat there talking the question over before the fire.
Before we parted for the night I had engaged to use all my interest to
get him a commission in the Morays; and I left him pacing the hall,
his mind in a whirl, but his heart (as was plain to see) exulting in
his new prospects.

And certainly, when I came to inspect the castle by the next morning’s
light, I could understand his longing to leave it. A gloomier, more
pretentious, or worse-devised structure I never set eyes on. The
Mackenzie who erected it may well have been (as the saying is) his own
architect, and had either come to the end of his purse or left his
heirs to decide against planting gardens, laying out approaches or
even maintaining the pile in decent repair. In place of a drive a
grassy cart-track, scored deep with old ruts, led through a gateless
entrance into a courtyard where the slates had dropped from the roof
and lay strewn like autumn leaves. On this road I encountered the
young Laird returning from an early tramp with his gun; and he stood
still and pointed to the castle with a grimace.

“A white elephant,” said I.

“Call it rather the corpse of one,” he answered. “Cannot you imagine
some genie of the Oriental Tales dragging the beast across Europe
and dumping it down here in a sudden fit of disgust? As a matter of
fact my grandfather built it, and cursed us with poverty thereby. It
soured my father’s life. I believe the only soul honestly proud of it
is Elspeth.”

“And I suppose,” said I, “you will leave her in charge of it when you
join the Morays?”

“Ah!” he broke in, with a voice which betrayed his relief: “you are
in earnest about that? Yes Elspeth will look after the castle, as she
does already. I am just a child in her hand. When a man has one only
servant it’s well to have her devoted.” Seeing my look of surprise, he
added, “I don’t count old Duncan, her husband; for he’s half-witted,
and only serves to break the plates. Does it surprise you to learn
that, barring him, Elspeth is my only retainer?”

“H’m,” said I, considerably puzzled–I must explain why.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am by training an extraordinarily light sleeper; yet nothing had
disturbed me during the night until at dawn my brother knocked at the
door and entered, ready dressed.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed, “are you responsible for this?” and he pointed
to a chair at the foot of the bed where lay, folded in a neat pile,
not only the clothes I had tossed down carelessly overnight, but the
suit in which I had arrived. He picked up this latter, felt it, and
handed it to me. It was dry, and had been carefully brushed.

“Our friend keeps a good valet,” said I; “but the queer thing is that,
in a strange room, I didn’t wake. I see he has brought hot water too.”

“Look here,” my brother asked: “did you lock your door?”

“Why, of course not–the more by token that it hasn’t a key.”

“Well,” said he, “mine has, and I’ll swear I used it; but the same
thing has happened to me!”

This, I tried to persuade him, was impossible; and for the while he
seemed convinced. “It must be,” he owned; “but if I didn’t lock that
door I’ll never swear to a thing again in all my life.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The young Laird’s remark set me thinking of this, and I answered after
a pause, “In one of the pair, then, you possess a remarkably clever
valet.”

It so happened that, while I said it, my eyes rested, without the
least intention, on the sleeve of his shooting-coat; and the words
were scarcely out before he flushed hotly and made a motion as if to
hide a neatly mended rent in its cuff. In another moment he would have
retorted, and was indeed drawing himself up in anger, when I prevented
him by adding–

“I mean that I am indebted to him or to her this morning for a neatly
brushed suit; and I suppose to your freeness in plying me with wine
last night that it arrived in my room without waking me. But for that
I could almost set it down to the supernatural.”

I said this in all simplicity, and was quite unprepared for its effect
upon him, or for his extraordinary reply. He turned as white in
the face as, a moment before, he had been red. “Good God!” he said
eagerly, “you haven’t missed anything, have you?”

“Certainly not,” I assured him. “My dear sir–”

“I know, I know. But you see,” he stammered, “I am new to these
servants. I know them to be faithful, and that’s all. Forgive me; I
feared from your tone one of them–Duncan perhaps …”

He did not finish his sentence, but broke into a hurried walk and led
me towards the house. A minute later, as we approached it, he began
to discourse half-humorously on its more glaring features, and had
apparently forgotten his perturbation.

I too attached small importance to it, and recall it now merely
through unwillingness to omit any circumstance which may throw light
on a story sufficiently dark to me. After breakfast our host walked
down with us to the loch-side, where we found old Donald putting the
last touches on his job. With thanks for our entertainment we shook
hands and pushed off: and my last word at parting was a promise to
remember his ambition and write any news of my success.

II

I anticipated no difficulty, and encountered none. The Gazette of
January, 1815, announced that David Marie Joseph Mackenzie, gentleman,
had been appointed to an ensigncy in the –th Regiment of Infantry
(Moray Highlanders); and I timed my letter of congratulation to reach
him with the news. Within a week he had joined us at Inverness, and
was made welcome.

I may say at once that during his brief period of service I could find
no possible fault with his bearing as a soldier. From the first he
took seriously to the calling of arms, and not only showed himself
punctual on parade and in all the small duties of barracks, but
displayed, in his reserved way, a zealous resolve to master whatever
by book or conversation could be learned of the higher business of
war. My junior officers–though when the test came, as it soon did,
they acquitted themselves most creditably–showed, as a whole, just
then no great promise. For the most part they were young lairds, like
Mr. Mackenzie, or cadets of good Highland families; but, unlike him,
they had been allowed to run wild, and chafed under harness. One or
two of them had the true Highland addiction to card-playing; and
though I set a pretty stern face against this curse–as I dare to call
it–its effects were to be traced in late hours, more than one case of
shirking “rounds,” and a general slovenliness at morning parade.

In such company Mr. Mackenzie showed to advantage, and I soon began to
value him as a likely officer. Nor, in my dissatisfaction with them,
did it give me any uneasiness–as it gave me no surprise–to find
that his brother-officers took less kindly to him. He kept a certain
reticence of manner, which either came of a natural shyness or had
been ingrained in him at the Roman Catholic seminary. He was poor,
too; but poverty did not prevent his joining in all the regimental
amusements, figuring modestly but sufficiently on the subscription
lists, and even taking a hand at cards for moderate stakes. Yet he
made no headway, and his popularity diminished instead of growing.
All this I noted, but without discovering any definite reason. Of his
professional promise, on the other hand, there could be no question;
and the men liked and respected him.

Our senior ensign at this date was a Mr. Urquhart, the eldest son of a
West Highland laird, and heir to a considerable estate. He had been
in barracks when Mr. Mackenzie joined; but a week later his father’s
sudden illness called for his presence at home, and I granted him a
leave of absence, which was afterwards extended. I regretted this, not
only for the sad occasion, but because it deprived the battalion for a
time of one of its steadiest officers, and Mr. Mackenzie in particular
of the chance to form a very useful friendship. For the two young men
had (I thought) several qualities which might well attract them each
to the other, and a common gravity of mind in contrast with their
companions’ prevalent and somewhat tiresome frivolity. Of the two I
Judged Mr. Urquhart (the elder by a year) to have the more stable
character. He was a good-looking, dark-complexioned young Highlander,
with a serious expression which, without being gloomy, did not
escape a touch of melancholy. I should judge this melancholy of Mr.
Urquhart’s constitutional, and the boyish sullenness which lingered on
Mr. Mackenzie’s equally handsome face to have been imposed rather by
circumstances.

Mr. Urquhart rejoined us on the 24th of February. Two days later, as
all the world knows, Napoleon made his escape from Elba; and the next
week or two made it certain not only that the allies must fight, but
that the British contingent must be drawn largely, if not in the main,
from the second battalions then drilling up and down the country. The
29th of March brought us our marching orders; and I will own that,
while feeling no uneasiness about the great issue, I distrusted the
share my raw youngsters were to take in it.

On the 12th of April we were landed at Ostend, and at once marched up
to Brussels, where we remained until the middle of June, having been
assigned to the 5th (Picton’s) Division of the Reserve. For some
reason the Highland regiments had been massed into the Reserve, and
were billeted about the capital, our own quarters lying between the
92nd (Gordons) and General Kruse’s Nassauers, whose lodgings stretched
out along the Louvain road; and although I could have wished some
harder and more responsible service to get the Morays into training, I
felt what advantage they derived from rubbing shoulders with the fine
fellows of the 42nd, 79th, and 92nd, all First Battalions toughened
by Peninsular work. The gaieties of life in Brussels during these two
months have been described often enough; but among the military they
were chiefly confined to those officers whose means allowed them to
keep the pace set by rich civilians, and the Morays played the part of
amused spectators. Yet the work and the few gaieties which fell to our
share, while adding to our experiences, broke up to some degree the
old domestic habits of the battalion. Excepting on duty I saw less of
Mr. Mackenzie and thought less about him; he might be left now to be
shaped by active service. But I was glad to find him often in company
with Mr. Urquhart.

I come now to the memorable night of June 15th, concerning which and
the end it brought upon the festivities of Brussels so much has been
written. All the world has heard of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball,
and seems to conspire in decking it out with pretty romantic fables.
To contradict the most of these were waste of time; but I may point
out (1) that the ball was over and, I believe, all the company
dispersed, before the actual alarm awoke the capital; and (2) that all
responsible officers gathered there shared the knowledge that such
an alarm was impending, might arrive at any moment, and would almost
certainly arrive within a few hours. News of the French advance across
the frontier and attack on General Zieten’s outposts had reached
Wellington at three o’clock that afternoon. It should have been
brought five hours earlier; but he gave his orders at once, and
quietly, and already our troops were massing for defence upon
Nivelles. We of the Reserve had secret orders to hold ourselves
prepared. Obedient to a hint from their Commander-in-chief, the
generals of division and brigade who attended the Duchess’ ball
withdrew themselves early on various pleas. Her Grace had honoured
me with an invitation, probably because I represented a Highland
regiment; and Highlanders (especially the Gordons, her brother’s
regiment) were much to the fore that night with reels, flings, and
strathspeys. The many withdrawals warned me that something was in the
wind, and after remaining just so long as seemed respectful, I took
leave of my hostess and walked homewards across the city as the clocks
were striking eleven.

We of the Morays had our headquarters in a fairly large building–the
Hotel de Liege–in time of peace a resort of commis-voyageurs of
the better class. It boasted a roomy hall, out of which opened two
coffee-rooms, converted by us into guard- and mess-room. A large
drawing-room on the first floor overlooking the street served me for
sleeping as well as working quarters, and to reach it I must pass the
entresol, where a small apartment had been set aside for occasional
uses. We made it, for instance, our ante-room, and assembled there
before mess; a few would retire there for smoking or card-playing;
during the day it served as a waiting-room for messengers or any one
whose business could not be for the moment attended to.

I had paused at the entrance to put some small question to the sentry,
when I heard the crash of a chair in this room, and two voices broke
out in fierce altercation. An instant after, the mess-room door
opened, and Captain Murray, without observing me, ran past me and
up the stairs. As he reached the entresol, a voice–my
brother’s–called down from an upper landing, and demanded, “What’s
wrong there?”

“I don’t know, Major,” Captain Murray answered, and at the same moment
flung the door open. I was quick on his heels, and he wheeled round in
some surprise at my voice, and to see me interposed between him and
my brother, who had come running downstairs, and now stood behind my
shoulder in the entrance.

“Shut the door,” I commanded quickly. “Shut the door, and send away
any one you may hear outside. Now, gentlemen, explain yourselves,
please.”

Mr. Urquhart and Mr. Mackenzie faced each other across a small table,
from which the cloth had been dragged and lay on the floor with a
scattered pack of cards. The elder lad held a couple of cards in his
hand; he was white in the face.

“He cheated!” He swung round upon me in a kind of indignant fury, and
tapped the cards with his forefinger.

I looked from him to the accused. Mackenzie’s face was dark, almost
purple, rather with rage (as it struck me) than with shame.

“It’s a lie.” He let out the words slowly, as if holding rein on his
passion. “Twice he’s said so, and twice I’ve called him a liar.” He
drew back for an instant, and then lost control of himself. “If that’s
not enough–.” He leapt forward, and almost before Captain Murray
could interpose had hurled himself upon Urquhart. The table between
them went down with a crash, and Urquhart went staggering back from a
blow which just missed his face and took him on the collar-bone before
Murray threw both arms around the assailant.

“Mr. Mackenzie,” said I, “you will consider yourself under arrest. Mr.
Urquhart, you will hold yourself ready to give me a full explanation.
Whichever of you may be in the right, this is a disgraceful business,
and dishonouring to your regiment and the cloth you wear: so
disgraceful, that I hesitate to call up the guard and expose it to
more eyes than ours. If Mr. Mackenzie”–I turned to him again–”can
behave himself like a gentleman, and accept the fact of his arrest
without further trouble, the scandal can at least be postponed until
I discover how much it is necessary to face. For the moment, sir, you
are in charge of Captain Murray. Do you understand?”

He bent his head sullenly. “He shall fight me, whatever happens,” he
muttered.

I found it wise to pay no heed to this. “It will be best,” I said to
Murray, “to remain here with Mr. Mackenzie until I am ready for him.
Mr. Urquhart may retire to his quarters, if he will–I advise it,
indeed–but I shall require his attendance in a few minutes. You
understand,” I added significantly, “that for the present this affair
remains strictly between ourselves.” I knew well enough that, for all
the King’s regulations, a meeting would inevitably follow sooner or
later, and will own I looked upon it as the proper outcome, between
gentlemen, of such a quarrel. But it was not for me, their Colonel, to
betray this knowledge or my feelings, and by imposing secrecy I put
off for the time all the business of a formal challenge with seconds.
So I left them, and requesting my brother to follow me, mounted to my
own room. The door was no sooner shut than I turned on him.

“Surely,” I said, “this is a bad mistake of Urquhart’s? It’s an
incredible charge. From all I’ve seen of him, the lad would never be
guilty …” I paused, expecting his assent. To my surprise he did not
give it, but stood fingering his chin and looking serious.

“I don’t know,” he answered unwillingly. “There are stories against
him.”

“What stories?”

“Nothing definite.” My brother hesitated. “It doesn’t seem fair to him
to repeat mere whispers. But the others don’t like him.”

“Hence the whispers, perhaps. They have not reached me.”

“They would not. He is known to be a favourite of yours. But they
don’t care to play with him.” My brother stopped, met my look, and
answered it with a shrug of the shoulders, adding, “He wins pretty
constantly.”

“Any definite charge before to-night’s?”

“No: at least, I think not. But Urquhart may have been put up to
watch.”

“Fetch him up, please,” said I promptly; and seating myself at the
writing-table I lit candles (for the lamp was dim), made ready the
writing materials and prepared to take notes of the evidence.

Mr. Urquhart presently entered, and I wheeled round in my chair to
confront him. He was still exceedingly pale–paler, I thought, than I
had left him. He seemed decidedly ill at ease, though not on his own
account. His answer to my first question made me fairly leap in my
chair.

“I wish,” he said, “to qualify my accusation of Mr. Mackenzie. That he
cheated I have the evidence of my own eyes; but I am not sure how far
he knew he was cheating.”

“Good heavens, sir!” I cried. “Do you know you have accused that young
man of a villainy which must damn him for life? And now you tell me–”
I broke off in sheer indignation.

“I know,” he answered quietly. “The noise fetched you in upon us on
the instant, and the mischief was done.”

“Indeed, sir,” I could not avoid sneering, “to most of us it would
seem that the mischief was done when you accused a brother-officer of
fraud to his face.”

He seemed to reflect. “Yes, sir,” he assented slowly; “it is done. I
saw him cheat: that I must persist in; but I cannot say how far he was
conscious of it. And since I cannot, I must take the consequences.”

“Will you kindly inform us how it is possible for a player to cheat
and not know that he is cheating?”

He bent his eyes on the carpet as if seeking an answer. It was long in
coming. “No,” he said at last, in a slow, dragging tone, “I cannot.”

“Then you will at least tell us exactly what Mr. Mackenzie did.”

Again there was a long pause. He looked at me straight, but with
hopelessness in his eyes. “I fear you would not believe me. It would
not be worth while. If you can grant it, sir, I would ask time to
decide.”

“Mr. Urquhart,” said I sternly, “are you aware you have brought
against Mr. Mackenzie a charge under which no man of honour can
live easily for a moment? You ask me without a word of evidence in
substantiation to keep him in torture while I give you time. It is
monstrous, and I beg to remind you that, unless your charge is proved,
you can–and will–be broken for making it.”

“I know it, sir,” he answered firmly enough; “and because I knew it, I
asked–perhaps selfishly–for time. If you refuse, I will at least ask
permission to see a priest before telling a story which I can scarcely
expect you to believe.” Mr. Urquhart too was a Roman Catholic.

But my temper for the moment was gone. “I see little chance,” said
I, “of keeping this scandal secret, and regret it the less if the
consequences are to fall on a rash accuser. But just now I will have
no meddling priest share the secret. For the present, one word more.
Had you heard before this evening of any hints against Mr. Mackenzie’s
play?”

He answered reluctantly, “Yes.”

“And you set yourself to lay a trap for him?”

“No, sir; I did not. Unconsciously I may have been set on the watch:
no, that is wrong–I did watch. But I swear it was in every hope and
expectation of clearing him. He was my friend. Even when I saw, I had
at first no intention to expose him until–”

“That is enough, sir,” I broke in, and turned to my brother. “I have
no option but to put Mr. Urquhart too under arrest. Kindly convey him
back to his room, and send Captain Murray to me. He may leave Mr.
Mackenzie in the entresol.”

My brother led Urquhart out, and in a minute Captain Murray tapped at
my door. He was an honest Scot, not too sharp-witted, but straight as
a die. I am to show him this description, and he will cheerfully agree
with it.

“This is a hideous business, Murray,” said I as he entered. “There’s
something wrong with Urquhart’s story. Indeed, between ourselves it
has the fatal weakness that he won’t tell it.”

Murray took a minute to digest this, then he answered, “I don’t know
anything about Urquhart’s story, sir. But there’s something wrong
about Urquhart.” Here he hesitated.

“Speak out, man,” said I: “in confidence. That’s understood.”

“Well, sir,” said he, “Urquhart won’t fight.”

“Ah! so that question came up, did it?” I asked, looking at him
sharply.

He was not abashed, but answered, with a twinkle in his eye, “I
believe, sir, you gave me no orders to stop their talking, and in a
case like this–between youngsters–some question of a meeting would
naturally come up. You see, I know both the lads. Urquhart I really
like; but he didn’t show up well, I must own–to be fair to the other,
who is in the worse fix.”

“I am not so sure of that,” I commented; “but go on.”

He seemed surprised. “Indeed, Colonel? Well,” he resumed, “I being the
sort of fellow they could talk before, a meeting was discussed. The
question was how to arrange it without seconds–that is, without
breaking your orders and dragging in outsiders. For Mackenzie wanted
blood at once, and for awhile Urquhart seemed just as eager. All of a
sudden, when….” here he broke off suddenly, not wishing to commit
himself.

“Tell me only what you think necessary,” said I.

He thanked me. “That is what I wanted,” he said. “Well, all of a
sudden, when we had found out a way and Urquhart was discussing it, he
pulled himself up in the middle of a sentence, and with his eyes fixed
on the other–a most curious look it was–he waited while you could
count ten, and, ‘No,’ says he, ‘I’ll not fight you at once’–for we
had been arranging something of the sort–’not to-night, anyway, nor
to-morrow,’ he says. ‘I’ll fight you; but I won’t have your blood on
my head in that way.’ Those were his words. I have no notion what
he meant; but he kept repeating them, and would not explain, though
Mackenzie tried him hard and was for shooting across the table. He was
repeating them when the Major interrupted us and called him up.”

“He has behaved ill from the first,” said I. “To me the whole affair
begins to look like an abominable plot against Mackenzie. Certainly I
cannot entertain a suspicion of his guilt upon a bare assertion which
Urquhart declines to back with a tittle of evidence.”

“The devil he does!” mused Captain Murray. “That looks bad for him.
And yet, sir, I’d sooner trust Urquhart than Mackenzie, and if the
case lies against Urquhart–”

“It will assuredly break him,” I put in, “unless he can prove the
charge, or that he was honestly mistaken.”

“Then, sir,” said the Captain, “I’ll have to show you this. It’s ugly,
but it’s only justice.”

He pulled a sovereign from his pocket and pushed it on the
writing-table under my nose.

“What does this mean?”

“It is a marked one,” said he.

“So I perceive.” I had picked up the coin and was examining it.

“I found it just now,” he continued, “in the room below. The upsetting
of the table had scattered Mackenzie’s stakes about the floor.”

“You seem to have a pretty notion of evidence,” I observed sharply.
“I don’t know what accusation this coin may carry; but why need it be
Mackenzie’s? He might have won it from Urquhart.”

“I thought of that,” was the answer. “But no money had changed hands.
I enquired. The quarrel arose over the second deal, and as a matter of
fact Urquhart had laid no money on the table, but made a pencil-note
of a few shillings he lost by the first hand. You may remember, sir,
how the table stood when you entered.”

I reflected. “Yes, my recollection bears you out. Do I gather that you
have confronted Mackenzie with this?”

“No. I found it and slipped it quietly into my pocket. I thought we
had trouble enough on hand for the moment.”

“Who marked this coin?”

“Young Fraser, sir, in my presence. He has been losing small sums, he
declares, by pilfering. We suspected one of the orderlies.”

“In this connection you had no suspicion of Mr. Mackenzie?”

“None, sr.” He considered for a moment, and added: “There was a
curious thing happened three weeks ago over my watch. It found its
way one night to Mr. Mackenzie’s quarters. He brought it to me in the
morning; said it was lying, when he awoke, on the table beside his
bed. He seemed utterly puzzled. He had been to one or two already to
discover the owner. We joked him about it, the more by token that his
own watch had broken down the day before and was away at the mender’s.
The whole thing was queer, and has not been explained. Of course in
that instance he was innocent: everything proves it. It just occurred
to me as worth mentioning, because in both instances the lad may have
been the victim of a trick.”

“I am glad you did so,” I said; “though just now it does not throw any
light that I can see.” I rose and paced the room. “Mr. Mackenzie had
better be confronted with this, too, and hear your evidence. It’s best
he should know the worst against him; and if he be guilty it may move
him to confession.”

“Certainly, sir,” Captain Murray assented. “Shall I fetch him?”

“No, remain where you are,” I said; “I will go for him myself.”

I understood that Mr. Urquhart had retired to his own quarters or to
my brother’s, and that Mr. Mackenzie had been left in the entresol
alone. But as I descended the stairs quietly I heard within that room
a voice which at first persuaded me he had company, and next that,
left to himself, he had broken down and given way to the most childish
wailing. The voice was so unlike his, or any grown man’s, that it
arrested me on the lowermost stair against my will. It resembled
rather the sobbing of an infant mingled with short strangled cries of
contrition and despair.

“What shall I do? What shall I do? I didn’t mean it–I meant to do
good! What shall I do?”

So much I heard (as I say) against my will, before my astonishment
gave room to a sense of shame at playing, even for a moment, the
eavesdropper upon the lad I was to judge. I stepped quickly to the
door, and with a warning rattle (to give him time to recover himself)
turned the handle and entered.

He was alone, lying back in an easy chair–not writhing there in
anguish of mind, as I had fully expected, but sunk rather in a state
of dull and hopeless apathy. To reconcile his attitude with the sounds
I had just heard was merely impossible; and it bewildered me worse
than any in the long chain of bewildering incidents. For five seconds
or so he appeared not to see me; but when he grew aware his look
changed suddenly to one of utter terror, and his eyes, shifting from
me, shot a glance about the room as if he expected some new accusation
to dart at him from the corners. His indignation and passionate
defiance were gone: his eyes seemed to ask me, “How much do you know?”
before he dropped them and stood before me, sullenly submissive.

“I want you upstairs,” said I: “not to hear your defence on this
charge, for Mr. Urquhart has not yet specified it. But there is
another matter.”

“Another?” he echoed dully, and, I observed, without surprise.

I led the way back to the room where Captain Murray waited. “Can you
tell me anything about this?” I asked, pointing to the sovereign on
the writing-table.

He shook his head, clearly puzzled, but anticipating mischief.

“The coin is marked, you see. I have reason to know that it was marked
by its owner in order to detect a thief. Captain Murray found it just
now among your stakes.”

Somehow–for I liked the lad–I had not the heart to watch his face as
I delivered this. I kept my eyes upon the coin, and waited, expecting
an explosion–a furious denial, or at least a cry that he was the
victim of a conspiracy. None came. I heard him breathing hard. After
a long and very dreadful pause some words broke from him, so lowly
uttered that my ears only just caught them.

“This too? O my God!”

I seated myself, the lad before me, and Captain Murray erect and rigid
at the end of the table. “Listen, my lad,” said I. “This wears an ugly
look, but that a stolen coin has been found in your possession does
not prove that you’ve stolen it.”

“I did not. Sir, I swear to you on my honour, and before Heaven, that
I did not.”

“Very well,” said I: “Captain Murray asserts that he found this
among the moneys you had been staking at cards. Do you question that
assertion?”

He answered almost without pondering. “No, sir. Captain Murray is a
gentleman, and incapable of falsehood. If he says so, it was so.”

“Very well again. Now, can you explain how this coin came into your
possession?”

At this he seemed to hesitate; but answered at length, “No, I cannot
explain.”

“Have you any idea? Or can you form any guess?”

Again there was a long pause before the answer came in low and
strained tones: “I can guess.”

“What is your guess?”

He lifted a hand and dropped it hopelessly. “You would not believe,”
he said.

I will own a suspicion flashed across my mind on hearing these
words–the very excuse given a while ago by Mr. Urquhart–that the
whole affair was a hoax and the two young men were in conspiracy to
fool me. I dismissed it at once: the sight of Mr. Mackenzie’s face,
was convincing. But my temper was gone.

“Believe you?” I exclaimed. “You seem to think the one thing I can
swallow as creditable, even probable, is that an officer in the Morays
has been pilfering and cheating at cards. Oddly enough, it’s the last
thing I’m going to believe without proof, and the last charge I shall
pass without clearing it up to my satisfaction. Captain Murray, will
you go and bring me Mr. Urquhart and the Major?”

As Captain Murray closed the door I rose, and with my hands behind
me took a turn across the room to the fireplace, then back to the
writing-table.

“Mr. Mackenzie,” I said, “before we go any further I wish you to
believe that I am your friend as well as your Colonel. I did something
to start you upon your career, and I take a warm interest in it. To
believe you guilty of these charges will give me the keenest grief.
However unlikely your defence may sound–and you seem to fear it–I
will give it the best consideration I can. If you are innocent, you
shall not find me prejudiced because many are against you and you are
alone. Now, this coin–” I turned to the table.

The coin was gone.

I stared at the place where it had lain; then at the young man. He had
not moved. My back had been turned for less than two seconds, and I
could have sworn he had not budged from the square of carpet on
which he had first taken his stand, and on which his feet were still
planted. On the other hand, I was equally positive the incriminating
coin had lain on the table at the moment I turned my back.

“It is gone!” cried I.

“Gone?” he echoed, staring at the spot to which my finger pointed. In
the silence our glances were still crossing when my brother tapped at
the door and brought in Mr. Urquhart, Captain Murray following.

Dismissing for a moment this latest mystery, I addressed Mr. Urquhart.
“I have sent for you, sir, to request in the first place that here in
Mr. Mackenzie’s presence and in colder blood you will either withdraw
or repeat and at least attempt to substantiate the charge you brought
against him.”

“I adhere to it, sir, that there was cheating. To withdraw would be to
utter a lie. Does he deny it?”

I glanced at Mr. Mackenzie. “I deny that I cheated,” said he sullenly.

“Further,” pursued Mr. Urquhart, “I repeat what I told you, sir. He
may, while profiting by it have been unaware of the cheat. At the
moment I thought it impossible; but I am willing to believe–”

“You are willing!” I broke in. “And pray, sir, what about me, his
Colonel, and the rest of his brother officers? Have you the coolness
to suggest–”

But the full question was never put, and in this world it will never
be answered. A bugle call, distant but clear, cut my sentence in
half. It came from the direction of the Place d’Armes. A second bugle
echoed, it from the height of the Montagne du Parc, and within a
minute its note was taken up and answered across the darkness from
quarter after quarter.

We looked at one another in silence. “Business,” said my