"Same to you, my son. Whither away?—as the man said once."
"Aye, whither away?" chimed Uncle Issy; "for the pilchards be all gone up Channel these two months."
"To Liskeard, for a chest-o'-drawers." Young Zeb, to be ready for married life, had taken a house for himself—a neat cottage with a yard and stable, farther up the coombe. But stress of business had interfered with the furnishing until quite lately.
"Rate meogginy, I suppose, as befits a proud tradesman."
"No: painted, but wi' the twiddles put in so artfully you'd think 'twas rale. So, as 'tis a fine day, I'm drivin' in to Mister Pennyway's shop o' purpose to fetch it afore it be snapped up, for 'tis a captivatin' article. I'll be back by six, tho', i' time to get into my clothes an' grease my hair for the courant, up to Sheba."
"Zeb," said his father, abruptly, "'tis a grand match you'm makin', an' you may call me a nincom, but I wish ye wasn'."
"'Tis lookin' high," put in Uncle Issy.
"A cat may look at a king, if he's got his eyes about en," Old Zeb went on, "let alone a legacy an' a green cart. 'Tain't that: 'tis the maid."
"How's mother?" asked the young man, to shift the conversation.
"Hugly, my son. Hi! Rachel!" he shouted, turning his head towards the
cottage; and then went on, dropping his voice, "As between naybours,
I'm fain to say she don't shine this mornin'. Hi, mother! here's
Zebedee waitin' to pay his respects."
Mrs. Minards appeared on the cottage threshold, with a blue check duster round her head—a tall, angular woman, of severe deportment. Her husband's bulletin, it is fair to say, had reference rather to her temper than to her personal attractions.
"Be the Frenchmen landed?" she inquired, sharply.
"Why, no; nor yet likely to."
"Then why be I called out i' the midst o' my clanin'? What came I out for to see? Was it to pass the time o' day wi' an aged shaken-by-the-wind kind o' loiterer they name Uncle Issy?"
Apparently it was not, for Uncle Issy by this time was twenty yards up the road, and still fleeing, with his head bent and shoulders extravagantly arched, as if under a smart shower.
"I thought I'd like to see you, mother," said Young Zeb.
"Well, now you've done it."
"Best be goin', I reckon, my son," whispered Old Zeb.
"I be much the same to look at," announced the voice above, "as afore your legacy came. 'Tis only up to Sheba that faces ha' grown kindlier."
Young Zeb touched up his mare a trifle savagely.
"Well, so long, my son! See 'ee up to Sheba this evenin', if all's well."
The old man turned back to his work, while Young Zeb rattled on in an ill humour. He had the prettiest sweetheart and the richest in Lanihale parish, and nobody said a good word for her. He tried to think of her as a wronged angel, and grew angry with himself on finding the effort hard to sustain. Moreover, he felt uneasy about the stranger. Fate must be intending mischief, he fancied, when it led him to rescue a man who so strangely happened to bear his own name. The fellow, too, was still at Sheba, being nursed back to strength; and Zeb didn't like it. In spite of the day, and the merry breath of it that blew from the sea upon his right cheek, black care dogged him all the way up the long hill that led out of Porthlooe, and clung to the tail-board of his green cart as he jolted down again towards Ruan Cove.
After passing the Cove-head, Young Zeb pulled up the mare, and was taken with a fit of thoughtfulness, glancing up towards Sheba farm, and then along the high-road, as if uncertain. The mare settled the question after a minute, by turning into the lane, and Zeb let her have her way.
"Where's Miss Ruby?" he asked, driving into the town-place, and coming on Mary Jane, who was filling a pig's-bucket by the back door.
"Gone up to Pare Dew 'long wi' maister an' the very man I seed i' my tay-cup, a week come Friday."
"H'm."
"Iss, fay; an' a great long-legged stranger he was. So I stuck en 'pon my fist an' gave en a scat. 'To-day,' says I, but he didn' budge. 'To-morrow,' I says, an' gave en another; and then 'Nex' day;' and t' third time he flew. 'Shall have a sweet'eart, Sunday, praise the Lord,' thinks I; 'wonder who 'tis? Anyway, 'tis a comfort he'll be high 'pon his pins, like Nanny Painter's hens, for mine be all the purgy-bustious shape just now.' Well, Sunday night he came to Raney Rock, an' Monday mornin' to Sheba farm; and no thanks to you that brought en, for not a single dare-to-deny-me glance has he cast this way."
"Which way, then?"
"'Can't stay to causey, Master Zeb, wi' all the best horn-handled knives to be took out o' blue-butter 'gainst this evenin's courant. Besides, you called me a liar last week."
"So you be. But I'll believe 'ee this time."
"Well, I'll tell 'ee this much—for you look a very handsome jowter i' that new cart. If I were you, I'd be careful that gay furriner didn steal more'n my name"
Meantime, a group of four was standing in the middle of Parc Dew, the twenty-acred field behind the farmstead. The stranger, dressed in a blue jersey and outfit of Farmer Tresidder's, that made up in boots for its shortcomings elsewhere, was addressing the farmer, Ruby, and Jim Lewarne, who heard him with lively attention. In his right hand he held a walking-stick armed with a spud, for uprooting thistles; and in his left a cake of dark soil, half stone, half mud. His manner was earnest.
". . . . I see," he was saying, "that I don't convince you; and it's only for your own sakes I insist on convincing you. You'll grant me that, I suppose. To-morrow, or the next day, I go; and the chances are that we never meet again in this world. But 'twould be a pleasant thought to carry off to the ends of the earth that you, my benefactors, were living in wealth, enriched (if I may say it without presumption) by a chance word of mine. I tell you I know something of these matters—"
"I thought you'd passed your days privateerin'," put in Jim Lewarne, who was the only hostile listener, perhaps because he saw no chance of sharing in the promised wealth.
"Jim, hold your tongue!" snapped Ruby.
"I ask you," went on the stranger, without deigning to answer, "I ask you if it does not look like Providence? Here have you been for years, dwelling amid wealth of which you never dreamed. A ship is wrecked close to your doors, and of all her crew the one man saved is, perhaps, the one man who could enlighten you. You feed him, clothe him, nurse him. As soon as he can crawl about, he picks a walking-stick out of half-a-dozen or more in the hall, and goes out with you to take a look at the farm. On his way he notes many things. He sees (you'll excuse me, Farmer, but I can't help it) that you're all behind the world, and the land is yielding less than half of what it ought. Have you ever seen a book by Lord Dundonald on the connection between Agriculture and Chemistry? No? I thought not. Do you know of any manure better than the ore-weed you gather down at the Cove? Or the plan of malting grain to feed your cattle on through the winter? Or the respective merits of oxen and horses as beasts of draught? But these matters, though the life and soul of modern husbandry, are as nothing to this lump in my hand. What do you call the field we're now standing in?"
"Parc Dew."
"Exactly—the 'black field,' or the 'field of black soil': the very name should have told you. But you lay it down in grass, and but for the chance of this spud and a lucky thistle, I might have walked over it a score of times without guessing its secret. Man alive, it's red gold I have here—red, wicked, damnable, delicious gold—the root of all evil and of most joys."
"If you lie, you lie enticingly, young man."
"By gold, I mean stuff that shall make gold for you. There is ore here, but what ore exactly I can't tell till I've streamed it: lead, I fancy, with a trace of silver—wealth for you, certainly; and in what quantity you shall find out—"
At this juncture a voice was heard calling over the hedge, at the bottom of the field. It came from Young Zeb, the upper part of whose person, as he stood up in his cart, was just visible between two tamarisk bushes.
"Ru-b-y-y-y!"
"Drat the chap!" exclaimed Ruby's father, wheeling round sharply.
"What d'ye wa-a-a-nt?" he yelled back.
"Come to know 'bout that chest o' dra-w-w-ers!"
"Then come 'long round by th' ga-a-ate!"
"Can't sta-a-ay! Want to know, as I'm drivin' to Liskeard, if Ruby thinks nine-an'-six too mu-u-ch, as the twiddles be so very cle-v-ver!"
"How ridiculous!" muttered the stranger, just loud enough for Ruby to hear. "Who is this absurd person?"
Jim Lewarne answered—"A low-lived chap, mister, as saved your skin awhile back."
"Dear, dear—how unpardonable of me! I hadn't, the least idea at this distance. Excuse me, I must go and thank him at once."
He moved towards the hedge with a brisk step that seemed to cost him some pain. The others followed, a pace or two behind.
"You'll not mind my interruptin', Farmer," continued Young Zeb, "but 'tis time Ruby made her mind up, for Mister Pennyway won't take a stiver less. 'Mornin', Ruby, my dear."
"And you'll forgive me if I also interrupt," put in the stranger, with the pleasantest smile, "but it is time I thanked the friend who saved my life on Monday morning. I would come round and shake hands if only I could see the gate."
"Don't 'ee mention it," replied Zeb, blushing hotly. "I'm glad to mark ye lookin' so brave a'ready. Well, what d'ye say, Ruby?"
"I say 'please yoursel'.'"
For of the two men standing before Ruby (she did not count her father and Jim Lewarne), the stranger, with his bold features and easy conciliating carriage, had the advantage. It is probable that he knew it, and threw a touch of acting into his silence as Zeb cut him short.
"That's a fair speech," replied Zeb. "Iss, turn it how you will, the words be winnin' enow. But be danged, my dear, if I wudn' as lief you said, 'Go to blazes!'"
"Fact is, my son," said Farmer Tresidder, candidly, "you'm good but untimely, like kissin' the wrong maid. This here surpassin' young friend o' mine was speech-makin' after a pleasant fashion in our ears when you began to bawl—"
"Then you don't want to hear about the chest o' drawers?" interrupted
Zeb in dudgeon, with a glance at Ruby, who pretended not to see it.
"Well, no. To tell 'ee the slap-bang truth, I don't care if I see no trace of 'ee till the dancin' begins to commence to-night."
"Then good-day t' ye, friends," answered Young Zeb, and turned the mare.
"Cl'k, Jessamy!" He rattled away down the lane.
"What an admirable youth!" murmured the stranger, falling back a pace and gazing after the back of Zeb's head as it passed down the line of the hedge. "What a messenger! He seems eaten up with desire to get you a chest of drawers that shall be wholly satisfying. But why do you allow him to call you 'my dear'?"
"Because, I suppose, that's what I am," answered Ruby; "because I'm goin' to marry him within the month."
"Wh-e-e-w!"
But, as a matter of fact, the stranger had known before asking.
CHAPTER V.
THE STRANGER DANCES IN ZEB'S SHOES.
It was close upon midnight, and in the big parlour at Sheba the courant, having run through its normal stages of high punctilio, artificial ease, zest, profuse perspiration, and supper, had reached the exact point when Modesty Prowse could be surprised under the kissing-bush, and Old Zeb wiped his spectacles, thrust his chair back, and pushed out his elbows to make sure of room for the rendering of "Scarlet's my Colour." These were tokens to be trusted by an observer who might go astray in taking any chance guest as a standard of the average conviviality. Mr. and Mrs. Jim Lewarne, for example, were accustomed on such occasions to represent the van and rear-guard respectively in the march of gaiety; and in this instance Jim had already imbibed too much hot "shenachrum," while his wife, still in the stage of artificial ease, and wearing a lace cap, which was none the less dignified for having been smuggled, was perpending what to say when she should get him home. The dancers, pale and dusty, leant back in rows against the wall, and with their handkerchiefs went through the motions of fanning or polishing, according to sex. In their midst circulated Farmer Tresidder, with a three-handled mug of shenachrum, hot from the embers, and furred with wood-ash.
"Take an' drink, thirsty souls. Niver do I mind the Letterpooch so footed i' my born days."
"'Twas conspirator—very conspirator," assented Old Zeb, screwing up his
A string a trifle, and turning con spirito into a dark saying.
"What's that?"
"Greek for elbow-grease. Phew!" He rubbed his fore-finger round between neck and shirt-collar. "I be vady as the inside of a winder."
"Such a man as you be to sweat, crowder!" exclaimed Calvin Oke.
"Set you to play six-eight time an' 'tis beads right away."
"A slice o' saffern-cake, crowder, to stay ye. Don't say no. Hi, Mary
Jane!"
"Thank 'ee, Farmer. A man might say you was in sperrits to-night, makin' so bold."
"I be; I be."
"Might a man ax wherefore, beyond the nat'ral hail-fellow-well-met of the season?"
"You may, an' yet you mayn't," answered the host, passing on with the mug.
"Uncle Issy," asked Jim Lewarne, lurching up, "I durstn' g-glint over my shoulder—but wud 'ee mind tellin' me if th' old woman's lookin' this way—afore I squench my thirst?"
"Iss, she be."
Jim groaned. "Then wud 'ee mind a-hofferin' me a taste out o' your pannikin? an' I'll make b'lieve to say 'Norronany' count.' Amazin' 'ot t' night," he added, tilting back on his heels, and then dipping forward with a vague smile.
Uncle Issy did as he was required, and the henpecked one played his part of the comedy with elaborate slyness. "I don't like that strange chap," he announced, irrelevantly.
"Nor I nuther," agreed Elias Sweetland, "tho' to be sure, I've a-kept my eye 'pon en, an' the wonders he accomplishes in an old pair o' Tresidder's high-lows must be seen to be believed. But that's no call for Ruby's dancin' wi' he a'most so much as wi' her proper man."
"The gel's takin' her fling afore wedlock. I heard Sarah Ann Nanjulian, just now, sayin' she ought to be clawed."
"A jealous woman is a scourge shaken to an' fro," said Old Zeb; "but I've a mind, friends, to strike up 'Randy my dandy,' for that son o' mine is lookin' blacker than the horned man, an' may be 'twill comfort 'en to dance afore the public eye; for there's none can take his wind in a hornpipe."
In fact, it was high time that somebody comforted Young Zeb, for his heart was hot. He had brought home the chest of drawers in his cart, and spent an hour fixing on the best position for it in the bedroom, before dressing for the dance. Also he had purchased, in Mr. Pennyway's shop, an armchair, in the worst taste, to be a pleasant surprise for Ruby when the happy day came for installing her. Finding he had still twenty minutes to spare after giving the last twitch to his neckerchief, and the last brush to his anointed locks, he had sat down facing this chair, and had striven to imagine her in it, darning his stockings. Zeb was not, as a rule, imaginative, but love drew this delicious picture for him. He picked up his hat, and set out for Sheba in the best of tempers.
But at Sheba all had gone badly. Ruby's frock of white muslin and Ruby's small sandal shoes were bewitching, but Ruby's mood passed his intelligence. It was true she gave him half the dances, but then she gave the other half to that accursed stranger, and the stranger had all her smiles, which was carrying hospitality too far. Not a word had she uttered to Zeb beyond the merest commonplaces; on the purchase of the chest of drawers she had breathed no question; she hung listlessly on his arm, and spoke only of the music, the other girls' frocks, the arrangement of the supper-table. And at supper the stranger had not only sat on the other side of her, but had talked all the time, and on books, a subject entirely uninteresting to Zeb. Worst of all, Ruby had listened. No; the worst of all was a remark of Modesty Prowse's that he chanced to overhear afterwards.
So when the fiddles struck up the air of "Randy my dandy," Zeb, knowing that the company would call upon him, at first felt his heart turn sick with loathing. He glanced across the room at Ruby, who, with heightened colour, was listening to the stranger, and looking up at his handsome face. Already one or two voices were calling "Zeb!" "Young Zeb for a hornpipe!" "Now then, Young Zeb!"
He had a mind to refuse. For years after he remembered every small detail of the room as he looked down it and then across to Ruby again: the motion of the fiddle-bows; the variegated dresses of the women; the kissing-bush that some tall dancer's head had set swaying from the low rafter; the light of a sconce gleaming on Tresidder's bald scalp. Years after, he could recall the exact poise of Ruby's head as she answered some question of her companion. The stranger left her, and strolled slowly down the room to the fireplace, when he faced round, throwing an arm negligently along the mantel-shelf, and leant with legs crossed, waiting.
Then Young Zeb made up his mind, and stepped out into the middle of the floor. The musicians were sawing with might and main at high speed. He crossed his arms, and, fixing his eyes on the stranger's, began the hornpipe.
When it ceased, he had danced his best. It was only when the applause broke out that he knew he had fastened, from start to finish, on the man by the fireplace a pair of eyes blazing with hate. The other had stared back quietly, as if he noted only the performance. As the music ended sharply with the click of Young Zeb's two heels, the stranger bent, took up a pair of tongs, and rearranged the fire before lifting his head.
"Yes," he said, slowly, but in tones that were extremely distinct as the clapping died away, "that was wonderfully danced. In some ways I should almost say you were inspired. A slight want of airiness in the double-shuffle, perhaps—"
"Could you do't better?" asked Zeb, sulkily.
"That isn't the fair way to treat criticism, my friend; but yes—oh, yes, certainly I could do it better—in your shoes."
"Then try, i' my shoes." And Zeb kicked them off.
"I've a notion they'll fit me," was all the stranger answered, dropping on one knee and beginning to unfasten the cumbrous boots he had borrowed of Farmer Tresidder.
Indeed, the curious likeness in build of these two men—a likeness accentuated, rather than slurred, by their contrast in colour and face, was now seen to extend even to their feet. When the stranger stood up at length in Zeb's shoes, they fitted him to a nicety, the broad steel buckles lying comfortably over the instep, the back of the uppers closing round the hollow of his ankle like a skin.
Young Zeb, by this, had crossed shoeless to the fireplace, and now stood in the position lately occupied by his rival: only, whereas the stranger had lolled easily, Zeb stood squarely, with his legs wide apart and his hands deep in his pockets. He had no eyes for the intent faces around, no ears for their whispering, nor for the preliminary scrape of the instruments; but stood like an image, with the firelight flickering out between his calves, and watched the other man grimly.
"Ready?" asked his father's voice. "Then one—two—three, an' let fly!"
The fiddle-bows hung for an instant on the first note, and in a twinkling scampered along into "Randy my dandy." As the quick air caught at the listeners' pulses, the stranger crossed his arms, drew his right heel up along the inner side of his left ankle, and with a light nod towards the chimney-place began.
To the casual eye there was for awhile little to choose between the two dancers, the stranger's style being accurate, restrained, even a trifle dull. But of all the onlookers, Zeb knew best what hornpipe-dancing really was; and knew surely, after the first dozen steps, that he was going to be mastered. So far, the performance was academic only. Zeb, unacquainted with the word, recognised the fact, and was quite aware of the inspiration—the personal gift—held in reserve to transfigure this precise art in a minute or so, and give it life. He saw the force gathering in the steady rhythmical twinkle of the steel buckles, and heard it speak in the light recurrent tap with which the stranger's heels kissed the floor. It was doubly bitter that he and his enemy alone should know what was coming; trebly bitter that his enemy should be aware that he knew.
The crowder slackened speed for a second, to give warning, and dashed into the heel-and-toe. Zeb caught the light in the dancer's eyes, and still frowning, drew a long breath.
"Faster," nodded the stranger to the musicians' corner.
Then came the moment for which, by this time, Zeb was longing. The stranger rested with heels together while a man might count eight rapidly, and suddenly began a step the like of which none present had ever witnessed, Above the hips his body swayed steadily, softly, to the measure; his eyes never took their pleasant smile off Zeb's face, but his feet—
The steel buckles had become two sparkling moths, spinning, poising, darting. They no longer belonged to the man, but had taken separate life: and merely the absolute symmetry of their loops and circles, and the click-click-click on boards, regular as ever, told of the art that informed them.
"Faster!"
They crossed and re-crossed now like small flashes of lightning, or as if the boards were flints giving out a score of sparks at every touch of the man's heel.
"Faster!"
They seemed suddenly to catch the light out of every sconce, and knead it into a ball of fire, that spun and yet was motionless, in the very middle of the floor, while all the rest of the room grew suddenly dimmed.
Zeb with a gasp drew his eyes away for a second and glanced around. Fiddlers and guests seemed ghostly after the fierce light he had been gazing on. He looked along the pale faces to the place where Ruby stood. She, too, glanced up, and their eyes met.
What he saw fetched a sob from his throat. Then something on the floor caught his attention: something bright, close by his feet.
Between his out-spread legs, as it seemed, a thin streak of silver was creeping along the flooring. He rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
He was straddling across a stream of molten metal.
As Zeb caught sight of this, the stranger twirled, leapt a foot in the air, and came down smartly on the final note, with a click of his heels. The music ceased abruptly.
A storm of clapping broke out, but stopped almost on the instant: for the stranger had flung an arm out towards the hearth-stone.
"A mine—a mine!"
The white streak ran hissing from the heart of the fire, where a clod of earth rested among the ashen sticks.
"Witchcraft!" muttered one or two of the guests, peering forward with round eyes.
"Fiddlestick-end! I put the clod there myself. 'Tis lead!"
"Lead?"
"Ay, naybours all," broke in Farmer Tresidder, his bald head bedewed with sweat, "I don't want to abash 'ee, Lord knows; but 'tis trew as doom that I be a passing well-to-do chap. I shudn' wonder now"—and here he embraced the company with a smile, half pompous and half timid— "I shudn' wonder if ye was to see me trottin' to Parlyment House in a gilded coach afore Michaelmas—I be so tremenjous rich, by all accounts."
"You'll excoose my sayin' it, Farmer," spoke up Old Zeb out of the awed silence that followed, "for doubtless I may be thick o' hearin', but did I, or did I not, catch 'ee alludin' to a windfall o' wealth?"
"You did."
"You'll excoose me sayin' it, Farmer; but was it soberly or pleasantly, honest creed or light lips, down-right or random, 'out o' the heart the mouth speaketh' or wantonly and in round figgers, as it might happen to a man filled with meat and wine?"
"'Twas the cold trewth."
"By what slice o' fortune?"
"By a mine, as you might put it: or, as between man an' man, by a mine o' lead."
"Farmer, you're either a born liar or the darlin' o' luck."
"Aye: I feel it. I feel that overpowerin'ly."
"For my part," put in Mrs. Jim Lewarne, "I've given over follerin' the freaks o' Fortune. They be so very undiscernin'."
And this sentence probably summed up the opinion of the majority.
In the midst of the excitement Young Zeb strode up to the stranger, who stood a little behind the throng.
"Give me back my shoes," he said.
The other kicked them off and looked at him oddly.
"With pleasure. You'll find them a bit worn, I'm afraid."
"I'll chance that. Man, I'm not all sorry, either."
"Hey, why?"
"'Cause they'll not be worn agen, arter this night. Gentleman or devil, whichever you may be, I bain't fit to dance i' the same parish with 'ee—no, nor to tread the shoeleather you've worn."
"By the powers!" cried the stranger suddenly, "two minutes ago I'd have agreed with you. But, looking in your eyes, I'm not so sure of it."
"Of what?"
"That you won't wear the shoes again."
Then Zeb went after Ruby.
"I want to speak a word with 'ee," he said quietly, stepping up to her.
"Where?"
"I' the hall."
"But I can't come, just now."
"But you must."
She followed him out.
"Zeb, what's the matter with you?"
"Look here"—and he faced round sharply—"I loved you passing well."
"Well?" she asked, like a faint echo.
"I saw your eyes, just now. Don't lie."
"I won't."
"That's right. And now listen: if you marry me, I'll treat 'ee like a span'el dog. Fetch you shall, an' carry, for my pleasure. You shall be slave, an' I your taskmaster; an' the sweetness o' your love shall come by crushin', like trodden thyme. Shall I suit you?"
"I don't think you will."
"Then good-night to you."
"Good-night, Zeb. I don't fancy you'll suit me; but I'm not so sure as before you began to speak.".
There was no answer to this but the slamming of the front door.
At half-past seven that morning, Parson Babbage, who had risen early, after his wont, was standing on the Vicarage doorstep to respire the first breath of the pale day, when he heard the garden gate unlatched and saw Young Zeb coming up the path.
The young man still wore his festival dress; but his best stockings and buckled shoes were stained and splashed, as from much walking in miry ways. Also he came unsteadily, and his face was white as ashes. The parson stared and asked—
"Young Zeb, have you been drinking?"
"No."
"Then 'tis trouble, my son, an' I ask your pardon."
"A man might call it so. I'm come to forbid my banns."
The elder man cocked his head on one side, much as a thrush contemplates a worm.
"I smell a wise wit, somewhere. Young man, who taught you so capital a notion?"
"Ruby did."
"Pack o' stuff! Ruby hadn't the—stop a minute! 'twas that clever fellow you fetched ashore, on Monday. Of course—of course! How came it to slip my mind?"
Young Zeb turned away; but the old man was after him, quick as thought, and had laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Is it bitter, my son?"
"It is bitter as death, Pa'son."
"My poor lad. Step in an' break your fast with me—poor lad, poor lad! Nay, but you shall. There's a bitch pup i' the stables that I want your judgment on. Bitter, eh? I dessay. I dessay. I'm thinking of walking her—lemon spot on the left ear—Rattler strain, of course. Dear me, this makes six generations I can count back that spot—an' game every one. Step in, poor lad, step in: she's a picture."
CHAPTER VI.
SIEGE IS LAID TO RUBY.
The sun was higher by some hours—high enough to be streaming brightly over the wall into the courtlage at Sheba—when Ruby awoke from a dreamless sleep. As she lifted her head from the pillow and felt the fatigue of last night yet in her limbs, she was aware also of a rich tenor voice uplifted beneath her window. Air and words were strange to her, and the voice had little in common with the world as she knew it. Its exile on that coast was almost pathetic, and it dwelt on the notes with a feeling of a warmer land.
"O south be north—
O sun be shady—
Until my lady
Shall issue forth:
Till her own mouth
Bid sun uncertain
To draw his curtain,
Bid south be south."
She stole out of bed and went on tiptoe to the window, where she drew the blind an inch aside. The stranger's footstep had ceased to crunch the gravel, and he stood now just beneath her, before the monthly-rose bush. Throughout the winter a blossom or two lingered in that sheltered corner; and he had drawn the nearest down to smell at it.
"O heart, her rose,
I cannot ease thee
Till she release thee
And bid unclose.
So, till day come
And she be risen,
Rest, rose, in prison
And heart be dumb!"
He snapped the stem and passed on, whistling the air of his ditty, and twirling the rose between finger and thumb.
"Men are all ninnies," Ruby decided as she dropped the blind; "and I thank the fates that framed me female and priced me high. Heigho! but it's a difficult world for women. Either a man thinks you an angel, and then you know him for a fool, or he sees through you and won't marry you for worlds. If we behaved like that, men would fare badly, I reckon. Zeb loved me till the very moment I began to respect him: then he left off. If this one . . . I like his cool way of plucking my roses, though. Zeb would have waited and wanted, till the flower dropped."
She spent longer than usual over her dressing: so that when she appeared in the parlour the two men were already seated at breakfast. The room still bore traces of last night's frolic. The uncarpeted boards gleamed as the guests' feet had polished them; and upon the very spot where the stranger had danced now stood the breakfast-table, piled with broken meats. This alone of all the heavier pieces of furniture had been restored to its place. As Ruby entered, the stranger broke off an earnest conversation he was holding with the farmer, and stood up to greet her. The rose lay on her plate.
"Who has robbed my rose-bush?" she asked.
"I am guilty," he answered: "I stole it to give it back; and, not being mine, 'twas the harder to part with."
"To my mind," broke in Farmer Tresidder, with his mouth full of ham, "the best part o' the feast be the over-plush. Squab pie, muggetty pie, conger pie, sweet giblet pie—such a whack of pies do try a man, to be sure. Likewise junkets an' heavy cake be a responsibility, for if not eaten quick, they perish. But let it be mine to pass my days with a cheek o' pork like the present instance. Ruby, my dear, the young man here wants to lave us."
"Leave us?" echoed Ruby, pricking her finger deep in the act of pinning the stranger's rose in her bosom.
"You hear, young man. That's the tone o' speech signifyin' 'damn it all!' among women. And so say I, wi' all these vittles cryin' out to be ate."
"These brisk days," began the stranger quietly, "are not to be let slip. I have no wife, no kin, no friends, no fortune—or only the pound or two sewn in my belt. The rest has been lost to me these three days and lies with the Sentinel, five fathoms deep in your cove below. It is time for me to begin the world anew."
"But how about that notion o' mine?"
"We beat about the bush, I think," answered the other, pushing back his chair a bit and turning towards Ruby. "My dear young lady, your father has been begging me to stay—chiefly, no doubt, out of goodwill, but partly also that I may set him in the way to work this newly found wealth of his. I am sorry, but I must refuse."
"Why?" murmured the girl, taking courage to look at him.
"You oblige me to be brutal." His look was bent on her. He sat facing the window, and the light, as he leant sidewise, struck into the iris of his eyes and turned them blood-red in their depths. She had seen the same in dogs' eyes, but never before in a man's: and it sent a small shiver through her.
"Briefly," he went on, "I can stay on one condition only—that I marry you."
She rose from her seat and stood, grasping the back rail of the chair.
"Don't be alarmed. I merely state the condition, but of course it's awkward: you're already bound. Your father (who, I must say, honours me with considerable trust, seeing that he knows nothing about me) was good enough to suggest that your affection for this young fish-jowter was a transient fancy—"
"Father—" began the girl, rather for the sake of hearing her own voice than because she knew what to say.
Farmer Tresidder groaned. "Young man, where's your gumption? You'm makin' a mess o't—an' I thought 'ee so very clever."
"Really," pursued the stranger imperturbably, without lifting his eyes from Ruby, "I don't know which to admire most, your father's head or his heart; his head, I think, on the whole. So much hospitality, paternal solicitude, and commercial prudence was surely never packed into one scheme."
He broke off for a minute and, still looking at her, began to drum with his finger-tips on the cloth. His mouth was pursed up as if silently whistling an air. Ruby could neither move nor speak. The spell upon her was much like that which had lain on Young Zeb, the night before, during the hornpipe. She felt weak as a child in the presence of this man, or rather as one recovering from a long illness. He seemed to fill the room, speaking words as if they were living things, as if he were taking the world to bits and re-arranging it before her eyes. She divined the passion behind these words, and she longed to get a sight of it, to catch an echo of the voice that had sung beneath her window, an hour before. But when he resumed, it was in the same bloodless and contemptuous tone.
"Your father was very anxious that I should supplant this young jowter—"
"O Lord! I never said it."
"Allow me," said the stranger, without deigning to look round, "to carry on this courtship in my own way. Your father, young woman, desired—it was none of my suggestion—that I should insinuate myself into your good graces. I will not conceal from you my plain opinion of your father's judgment in these matters. I think him a fool."
"Name o' thunder!"
"Farmer, if you interrupt again I must ask you to get out. Young woman, kindly listen while I make you a formal proposition of marriage. My name, I have told you, is Zebedee Minards. I was born by London Docks, but have neither home nor people. I have travelled by land and sea; slept on silk and straw; drunk wine and the salt water; fought, gambled, made love, begged my bread; in all, lost much and found much, in many countries. I am tossed on this coast, where I find you, and find also a man in my name having hold over you. I think I want to marry you. Will you give up this other man?"
He pursed up his lips again. With that sense of trifles which is sharpest when the world suddenly becomes too big for a human being, Ruby had a curiosity to know what he was whistling. And this worried her even while, after a minute's silence, she stammered out—
"I—I gave him up—last night."
"Very good. Now listen again. In an hour's time I walk to Porthlooe. There I shall take the van to catch the Plymouth coach. In any case, I must spend till Saturday in Plymouth. It depends on you whether I come back at the end of that time. You are going to cry: keep the tears back till you have answered me. Will you marry me?"
She put out a hand to steady herself, and opened her lips. She felt the room spinning, and wanted to cry out for mercy. But her mouth made no sound.
"Will you marry me?"
"Ye—e—yes!"
As the word came, she sank down in a chair, bent her head on the table, and burst into a storm of tears.
"The devil's in it!" shouted her father, and bounced out of the room.
No sooner had the door slammed behind him than the stranger's face became transfigured.
He stood up and laid a hand softly on the girl's head.
"Ruby!"
She did not look up. Her shoulders were shaken by one great sob after another.
"Ruby!"
He took the two hands gently from her face, and forced her to look at him. His eyes were alight with the most beautiful smile.
"For pity's sake," she cried out, "don't look at me like that. You've looked me through and through—you understand me. Don't lie with your eyes, as you're lying now."
"My dear girl, yes—I understand you. But you're wrong. I lied to get you: I'm not lying now."
"I think you must be Satan himself."
The stranger laughed. "Surely he needn't to have taken so much trouble. Smile back at me, Ruby, for I played a risky stroke to get you, and shall play a risky game for many days yet."
He balanced himself on the arm of her chair and drew her head towards him.
"Tell me," he said, speaking low in her ear, "if you doubt I love you. Do you know of any other man who, knowing you exactly as you are, would wish to marry you?"
She shook her head. It was impossible to lie to this man.
"Or of another who would put himself completely into your power, as I am about to do? Listen; there is no lead mine at all on Sheba farm."
Ruby drew back her face and stared at him. "I assure you it's a fact."
"But the ore you uncovered—"
"—Was a hoax. I lied about it."
"The stuff you melted in this very fire, last night—wasn't that lead?"
"Of course it was. I stole it myself from the top of the church tower."
"Why?"
"To gain a footing here."
"Again, why?"
"For love of you."
During the silence that followed, the pair looked at each other.
"I am waiting for you to go and tell your father," said the stranger at length.
Ruby shivered.
"I seem to have grown very old and wise," she murmured.
He kissed her lightly.
"That's the natural result of being found out. I've felt it myself.
Are you going?"
"You know that I cannot."
"You shall have twenty minutes to choose. At the end of that time I shall pass out at the gate and look up at your window. If the blind remain up, I go to the vicarage to put up our banns before I set off for Plymouth. If it be drawn down, I leave this house for ever, taking nothing from it but a suit of old clothes, a few worthless specimens (that I shall turn out of my pockets by the first hedge), and the memory of your face."
It happened, as he unlatched the gate, twenty minutes later, that the blind remained up. Ruby's face was not at the window, but he kissed his hand for all that, and smiled, and went his way singing. The air was the very same he had whistled dumbly that morning, the air that Ruby had speculated upon. And the words were—
"'Soldier, soldier, will you marry me,
With the bagginet, fife and drum?'
'Oh, no, pretty miss, I cannot marry you,
For I've got no coat to put on.'
"So away she ran to the tailor's shop,
As fast as she could run,
And she bought him a coat of the very very best,
And the soldier clapped it on.
"'Soldier, soldier, will you marry me—'"
His voice died away down the lane.
CHAPTER VII.
THE "JOLLY PILCHARDS."
On the following Saturday night (New Year's Eve) an incident worth record occurred in the bar-parlour of the "Jolly Pilchards" at Porthlooe.
You may find the inn to this day on the western side of the Hauen as you go to the Old Quay. A pair of fish-scales faces the entrance, and the jolly pilchards themselves hang over your head, on a signboard that creaks mightily when the wind blows from the south.
The signboard was creaking that night, and a thick drizzle drove in gusts past the door. Behind the red blinds within, the landlady, Prudy Polwarne, stood with her back to the open hearth. Her hands rested on her hips, and the firelight, that covered all the opposite wall and most of the ceiling with her shadow, beat out between her thick ankles in the shape of a fan. She was a widow, with a huge, pale face and a figure nearly as broad as it was long; and no man thwarted her. Weaknesses she had none, except an inability to darn her stockings. That the holes at her heels might not be seen, she had a trick of pulling her stockings down under her feet, an inch or two at a time, as they wore out; and when the tops no longer reached to her knee, she gartered—so gossip said—half-way down the leg.
Around her, in as much of the warmth as she spared, sat Old Zeb, Uncle Issy, Jim Lewarne, his brother, and six or seven other notables of the two parishes. They were listening just now, and though the mug of eggy-hot passed from hand to hand as steadily as usual, a certain restrained excitement might have been guessed from the volumes of smoke ascending from their clay pipes.
"A man must feel it, boys," the hostess said, "wi' a rale four-poster hung wi' yaller on purpose to suit his wife's complexion, an' then to have no wife arter all."
"Ay," assented Old Zeb, who puffed in the corner of a settle on her left, with one side of his face illuminated and the other in deep shadow, "he feels it, I b'lieve. Such a whack o' dome as he'd a-bought, and a weather-glass wherein the man comes forth as the woman goes innards, an' a dresser, painted a bright liver colour, engaging to the eye."
"I niver seed a more matterimonial outfit, as you might say," put in
Uncle Issy.
"An' a warmin'-pan, an' likewise a lookin'-glass of a high pattern."
"An' what do he say?" inquired Calvin Oke, drawing a short pipe from his lips.
"In round numbers, he says nothing, but takes on."
"A wisht state!"
"Ay, 'tis wisht. Will 'ee be so good as to frisk up the beverage,
Prudy, my dear?"
Prudy took up a second large mug that stood warming on the hearthstone, and began to pour the eggy-hot from one vessel to the other until a creamy froth covered the top.
"'T'other chap's a handsome chap," she said, with her eyes on her work.
"Handsome is as handsome does," squeaked Uncle Issy.
"If you wasn' such an aged man, Uncle, I' call 'ee a very tame talker."
Uncle Issy collapsed.
"I reckon you'm all afeard o' this man," continued Prudy, looking round on the company, "else I'd have heard some mention of a shal-lal afore this."
The men with one accord drew their pipes out and looked at her.
"I mean it. If Porthlooe was the place it used to be, there'd be tin kettles in plenty to drum en out o' this naybourhood to the Rogue's March next time he showed his face here. When's he comin' back?"
No one knew.
"The girl's as bad; but 'twould be punishment enough for her to know her lover was hooted out o' the parish. Mind you, I've no grudge agen the man. I liked his dare-devil look, the only time I saw en. I'm only sayin' what I think—that you'm all afeard."
"I don't b'long to the parish," remarked a Landaviddy man, in the pause that followed, "but 'tis incumbent on Lanihale, I'm fain to admit."
The Lanihale men fired up at this.
"I've a tin-kettle," said Calvin Oke, "an' I'm ready."
"An' I for another," said Elias Sweetland. "An' I, An' I," echoed several voices.
"Stiddy there, stiddy, my hearts of oak," began Old Zeb, reflectively. "A still tongue makes a wise head, and 'twill be time enough to talk o' shal-lals when the weddin'-day's fixed. Now I've a better notion. It will not be gain-said by any of 'ee that I've the power of logic in a high degree—hey?"
"Trew, O king!"
"Surely, surely."
"The rarity that you be, crowder! Sorely we shall miss 'ee when you'm gone."
"Very well, then," Old Zeb announced. "I'm goin' to be logical wi' that chap. The very next time I see en, I'm goin' to step up to en an' say, as betwixt man an' man, 'Look 'ee here,' I'll say, 'I've a lawful son. You've a-took his name, an' you've a-stepped into his shoes, an' therefore I've a right to spake'" (he pulled at his churchwarden), "'to spake to 'ee'" (another pull) "'like a father.'" Here followed several pulls in quick succession.
The pipe had gone out. So, still holding the attention of the room, he reached out a hand towards the tongs. Prudy, anticipating his necessity, caught them up, dived them into the blaze, and drawing out a blazing end of stick, held it over the pipe while he sucked away.
During this pause a heavy step was heard in the passage. The door was pushed open, and a tall man, in dripping cloak and muddy boots, stalked into the room.
It was the man they had been discussing.
"A dirty night, friends, and a cold ride from Plymouth." He shook the water out of his hat over the sanded floor. "I'll take a pull at something hot, if you please."
Every one looked at him. Prudy, forgetting what she was about, waved the hot brand to and fro under Old Zeb's nose, stinging his eyes with smoke. Between confusion and suffocation, his face was a study.
"You seem astonished, all of you. May I ask why?"
"To tell 'ee the truth, young man," said Prudy, "'twas a case of 'talk of the devil an' you'll see his horns.'"
"Indeed. You were speaking good of me, I hope."
"Which o' your ears is burning?"
"Both."
"Then it shu'd be the left ear only. Old Zeb, here—"
"Hush 'ee now, Prudy!" implored the crowder.
"—Old Zeb here," continued Prudy, relentlessly, "was only a-sayin', as you walked in, that he'd read you the Riot Act afore you was many days older. He's mighty fierce wi' your goin's on, I 'sure 'ee."
"Is that so, Mr. Minards?"
Mr. Minards had, it is probable, never felt so uncomfortable in all his born days, and the experience of standing between two fires was new to him. He looked from the stranger around upon the company, and was met on all hands by the same expectant stare.
"Well, you see—" he began, and looked around again. The faces were inexorable. "I declare, friends, the pore chap is drippin' wet. Sich a tiresome v'yage, too, as it must ha' been from Plymouth, i' this weather! I dunno how we came to forget to invite en nigher the hearth. Well, as I was a-sayin'—"
He stopped to search for his hat beneath the settle. Producing a large crimson handkerchief from the crown, he mopped his brow slowly.
"The cur'ous part o't, naybours, is the sweatiness that comes over a man, this close weather."
"I'm waiting for your answer," put in the stranger, knitting his brows.
"Surely, surely, that's the very thing I was comin' to. The answer, as you may say, is this—but step a bit nigher, for there's lashins o' room—the answer, as far as that goes, is what I make to you, sayin'— that if you wasn' so passin' wet, may be I'd blurt out what I had i' my mind. But, as things go, 'twould seem like takin' an advantage."
"Not at all."
"'Tis very kind o' you to say so, to be sure." Old Zeb picked up his pipe again. "An' now, friends, that this little bit of onpleasantness have a-blown over, doin' ekal credit to both parties this New Year's-eve, after the native British fashion o' fair-play (as why shu'd it not?), I agree we be conformable to the pleasant season an' let harmony prevail—"
"Why, man," interrupted Prudy, "you niver gave no answer at all. 'Far as I could see you've done naught but fidget like an angletwitch and look fifty ways for Sunday."
"'Twas the roundaboutest, dodge-my-eyedest, hole-an'-cornerdest bit of a chap's mind as iver I heard given," pronounced the traitorous Oke.
"Oke—Oke," Old Zeb exclaimed, "all you know 'pon the fiddle I taught 'ee!"
Said Prudy—"That's like what the chap said when the donkey kicked en. ''Taint the stummick that I do vally,' he said, ''tis the cussed ongratefulness o' the jackass.'"
"I'm still waiting," repeated the stranger.
"Well, then"—Old Zeb cast a rancorous look around—"I'll tell 'ee, since you'm so set 'pon hearin'. Afore you came in, the good folks here present was for drummin' you out o' the country. 'Shockin' behayviour!' 'Aw, very shockin' indeed!' was the words I heerd flyin' about, an' 'Who'll make en sensible o't?' an' 'We'll give en what-for.' 'A silent tongue makes a wise head,' said I, an' o' this I call Uncle Issy here to witness."
Uncle Issy corroborated. "You was proverbial, crowder, I can duly vow, an' to that effect, unless my mem'ry misgives me."
"So, in a mollifyin' manner, I says, 'What hev the pore chap done, to be treated so bad?' I says. Says I, 'better lave me use logic wi' en'— eh, Uncle Issy?"
"Logic was the word."
The stranger turned round upon the company, who with one accord began to look extremely foolish as Old Zeb so adroitly turned the tables.
"Is this true?" he asked.
"'Tis the truth, I must admit," volunteered Uncle Issy, who had not been asked, but was fluttered with delight at having stuck to the right side against appearances.
"I think," said the stranger, deliberately, "it is as well that you and I, my friends, should understand each other. The turn of events has made it likely that I shall pass my days in this neighbourhood, and I wish to clear up all possible misconceptions at the start. In the first place, I am going to marry Miss Ruby Tresidder. Our banns will be asked in church to-morrow; but let us have a rehearsal. Can any man here show cause or just impediment why this marriage should not take place?"
"You'd better ask that o' Young Zeb, mister," said Prudy.
"Why?"
"You owe your life to'n, I hear."
"When next you see him you can put two questions. Ask him in the first place if he saved it at my request."
"Tut-tut. A man likes to live, whether he axes for it or no," grunted Elias Sweetland. "And what the devil do you know about it?" demanded the stranger.
"I reckon I know what a man's like."
"Oh, you do, do you? Wait a while, my friend. In the second place," he went on, returning to Prudy, "ask young Zebedee Minards, if he wants my life back, to come and fetch it. And now attend all. Do you see these?"
He threw back his cloak, and, diving a hand into his coat-pocket, produced a couple of pistols. The butts were rich with brass-work, and the barrels shone as he held them out in the firelight.
"You needn't dodge your heads about so gingerly. I'm only about to give you an exhibition. How many tall candlesticks have you in the house besides the pair here?" he inquired of Prudy.
"Dree pair."
"Put candles in the other two pairs and set them on the chimney-shelf."
"Why?"
"Do as I tell you."
"Now here's summat like a man!" said Prudy, and went out obediently to fetch them.
Until she returned there was dead silence in the bar-parlour. The men puffed uneasily at their pipes, not one of which was alight, and avoided the stranger's eye, which rested on each in turn with a sardonic humour.
Prudy lit the candles, one from the other, and after snuffing them with her fingers that they might burn steadily, arranged them in a row on the mantelshelf. Now above this shelf the chimney-piece was panelled to the height of some two and a half feet, and along the panel certain ballads that Prudy had purchased of the Sherborne messenger were stuck in a row with pins.
"Better take those ballads down, if you value them," the stranger remarked.
She turned round inquiringly.
"I'm going to shoot."
"Sakes alive—an' my panel, an' my best brass candlesticks!"
"Take them down."
She gave in, and unpinned the ballads.
"Now stand aside."
He stepped back to the other side of the room, and set his back to the door.
"Don't move," he said to Calvin Oke, whose chair stood immediately under the line of fire, "your head is not the least in the way. And don't turn it either, but keep your eye on the candle to the right."
This was spoken in the friendliest manner, but it hardly reassured Oke, who would have preferred to keep his eye on the deadly weapon now being lifted behind his back. Nevertheless he did not disobey, but sat still, with his eyes fixed on the mantelshelf, and only his shoulders twitching to betray his discomposure.
Bang!
The room was suddenly full of sound, then of smoke and the reek of gunpowder. As the noise broke on their ears one of the candles went out quietly. The candlestick did not stir, but a bullet was embedded in the panel behind. Calvin Oke felt his scalp nervously.
"One," counted the stranger. He walked quietly to the table, set down his smoking pistol, and took up the other, looking round at the same time on the white faces that stared on him behind the thick curls of smoke. Stepping back to his former position, he waited while they could count twenty, lifted the second pistol high, brought it smartly down to the aim and fired again.
The second candle went out, and a second bullet buried itself in Prudy's panel.
So he served the six, one after another, without a miss. Twice he reloaded both pistols slowly, and while he did so not a word was spoken. Indeed, the only sound to be heard came from Uncle Issy, who, being a trifle asthmatical with age, felt some inconvenience from the smoke in his throat. By the time the last shot was fired the company could hardly see one another. Prudy, two of whose dishes had been shaken off the dresser, had tumbled upon a settle, and sat there, rocking herself to and fro, with her apron over her head.
The sound of firing had reached the neighbouring houses, and by this time the passage was full of men and women, agog for a tragedy. The door burst open. Through the dense atmosphere the stranger descried a crowd of faces in the passage. He was the first to speak.
"Good folk, you alarm yourselves without cause. I have merely been pointing an argument that I and my friends happen to be holding here."
Then he turned to Calvin Oke, who lay in his chair like a limp sack, slowly recovering from his emotions at hearing the bullets whiz over his head.
"When I assure you that I carry these weapons always about me, you will hardly need to be warned against interfering with me again. The first man that meddles, I'll shoot like a rabbit—by the Lord Harry, I will! You hear?"
He slipped the pistols into his pocket, pulled out two crown pieces, and tossed them to Prudy.
"That'll pay for the damage, I daresay." So, turning on his heel, he marched out, leaving them in the firelight. The crowd in the passage fell back to right and left, and in a moment more he had disappeared into the black drizzle outside.
But the tradition of his feat survives, and the six holes in Prudy's panel still bear witness to its truth.
CHAPTER VIII.
YOUNG ZEB SELLS HIS SOUL.
These things were reported to Young Zeb as he sat in his cottage, up the coombe, and nursed his pain. He was a simple youth, and took life in earnest, being very slow to catch fire, but burning consumedly when once ignited. Also he was sincere as the day, and had been treacherously used. So he raged at heart, and (for pride made him shun the public eye) he sat at home and raged—the worst possible cure for love, which goes out only by open-air treatment. From time to time his father, Uncle Issy, and Elias Sweetland sat around him and administered comfort after the manner of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
"Your cheeks be pale, my son—lily-white, upon my soul. Rise, my son, an' eat, as the wise king recommended, sayin', 'Stay me wi' flagons, comfort me wi' yapples, for I be sick o' love.' A wise word that."
"Shall a man be poured out like water," inquired Uncle Issy, "an' turn from his vittles, an' pass his prime i' blowin' his nose, an' all for a woman?"
"I wasn' blowin' my nose," objected Zeb, shortly.
"Well, in black an' white you wasn', but ye gave me that idee."
Young Zeb stared out of the window. Far down the coombe a slice of blue sea closed the prospect, and the tan sails of a small lugger were visible there, rounding the point to the westward. He watched her moodily until she passed out of sight, and turned to his father.
"To-morrow, did 'ee say?"
"Iss, to-morrow, at eleven i' the forenoon. Jim Lewarne brought me word."
"Terrible times they be for Jim, I reckon," said Elias Sweetland. "All yestiddy he was goin' back'ards an' forrards like a lost dog in a fair, movin' his chattels. There's a hole in the roof of that new cottage of his that a man may put his Sunday hat dro'; and as for his old Woman, she'll do nought but sit 'pon the lime-ash floor wi' her tout-serve over her head, an' call en ivery name but what he was chris'ened."
"Nothin' but neck-an'-crop would do for Tresidder, I'm told," said Old Zeb. "'I've a-sarved 'ee faithful,' said Jim, 'an' now you turns me out wi' a week's warnin'.' 'You've a-crossed my will,' says Tresidder, 'an' I've engaged a more pushin' hind in your place.' 'Tis a new fashion o' speech wi' Tresidder nowadays."
"Ay, modern words be drivin' out the old forms. But 'twas only to get Jim's cottage for that strong-will'd supplantin' furriner because Ruby said 'twas low manners for bride an' groom to go to church from the same house. So no sooner was the Lewarnes out than he was in, like shufflin' cards, wi' his marriage garment an' his brush an' comb in a hand-bag. Tresidder sent down a mattress for en, an' he slept there last night."
"Eh, but that's a trifle for a campaigner."
"Let this be a warnin' to 'ee, my son niver to save no more lives from drownin'."
"I won't," promised Young Zeb.
"We've found 'ee a great missment," Elias observed to him, after a pause. "The Psa'ms, these three Sundays, bain't what they was for lack o' your enlivenin' flute—I can't say they be. An' to hear your very own name called forth in the banns wi' Ruby's, an' you wi'out part nor lot therein—"
"Elias, you mean it well, no doubt; but I'd take it kindly if you sheered off."
"'Twas a wisht Psa'm, too," went on Elias, "las' Sunday mornin'; an' I cudn' help my thoughts dwellin' 'pon the dismals as I blowed, nor countin' how that by this time to-morrow—"
But Young Zeb had caught up his cap and rushed from the cottage.
He took, not the highway to Porthlooe, but a footpath that slanted up the western slope of the coombe, over the brow of the hill, and led in time to the coast and a broader path above the cliffs. The air was warm, and he climbed in such hurry that the sweat soon began to drop from his forehead. By the time he reached the cliffs he was forced to pull a handkerchief out and mop himself; but without a pause, he took the turning westward towards Troy harbour, and tramped along sturdily. For his mind was made up.
Ship's-chandler Webber, of Troy, was fitting out a brand-new privateer, he had heard, and she was to sail that very week. He would go and offer himself as a seaman, and if Webber made any bones about it, he would engage to put a part of his legacy into the adventure. In fact, he was ready for anything that would take him out of Porthlooe. To live there and run the risk of meeting Ruby on the other man's arm was more than flesh and blood could stand. So he went along with his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes fastened straight ahead, his heart smoking, and the sweat stinging his eyelids. And as he went he cursed the day of his birth.
From Porthlooe to Troy Ferry is a good six miles by the cliffs, and when he had accomplished about half the distance, he was hailed by name.
Between the path at this point and the cliff's edge lay a small patch cleared for potatoes, and here an oldish man was leaning on his shovel and looking up at Zeb.
"Good-mornin', my son!"
"Mornin', hollibubber!"
The old man had once worked inland at St. Teath slate-quarries, and made his living as a "hollibubber," or one who carts away the refuse slates. On returning to his native parish he had brought back and retained the name of his profession, the parish register alone preserving his true name of Matthew Spry. He was a fervent Methodist—a local preacher, in fact—and was held in some admiration by "the people" for his lustiness in prayer-meeting. A certain intensity in his large grey eyes gave character to a face that was otherwise quite insignificant. You could see he was a good man.