He turned away, obviously expecting no answer, addressed himself henceforward to Sir Harry, and ignored Parson Jack, who followed him abashed, yet secretly burning to hear more, and wondering where all this knowledge could be obtained.
"But it is inconceivable!" Clement Vyell protested to his uncle, half an hour later, as they rode back towards Carwithiel. "The man has had the cure of that parish for—how long, do you say?—twenty-five years, and has never had the curiosity to discover the most rudimentary facts in its history."
"A hard case," assented Sir Harry. "He lifts his elbow, too."
"Eh?"
"Drinks." Sir Harry illustrated the idiom, lifting an imaginary glass to his mouth. "Oh, it's notorious. But what the deuce can we do? Kick him out?—not so easy; and, besides, he'd die under a hedge. You're hard on him, Clem. He has his notions of duty. Why"—the Baronet laughed—"I've seen him on the roof with a tar-bucket, caulking the leaks for dear life. He's a gentleman, too."
Clement Vyell tightened his lips and rode on in silence.
Left alone, Parson Jack stared around his church. His repairs, in which he had taken pride before now, seemed nakedly, hideously mean at this moment. But a new sense fought with his dejection—a sense altogether new to him—that his church had a history, a meaning into which he had never penetrated. The aisles seemed to expand, the chancel to reach up into a distance in which space and time were confused; and, following it, his eye rested on a patch of colour in the east window between the wooden tablets of the Law—a cluster of fragments of stained glass, rescued by some former vicar and set amid the clear panes—the legs and scarlet robe of a saint, an angel's wing, a broken legend on a scroll, part of a coat-of-arms, azure with a fesse,—wavy of gold—all thrown together as by a kaleidoscope gone mad. Each of these scraps had once a meaning: so this church held meanings, too long ignored by him, partly intelligible yet, soon to be mixed inextricably in a common downfall. For Clement Vyell might be wise in the history of architecture, but his eye had not read the one plain warning which stared a common workman in the face—that the days of this building were surely numbered, and were probably few.
Parson Jack had a mind to run after him. He must learn, and speedily, all about the church, its builders, this old colony of monks. But where? In books doubtless. Where could those books be found?
He had almost reached the door, when his eye fell on the two collecting-boxes. With a sudden thought he paused, drew a key from the pocket of his corduroys, and unlocked his own—the Parson's box. A sovereign lay within.
He picked up the coin and considered it, a dark flush growing on his face. Parson Jack had a temper, though few guessed it. With an effort he controlled it now, dropped the sovereign into the box labelled "Church Repairs," and walked slowly out.
He had no longer a mind to run after Clement Vyell. Instead, he bent his steps towards the four-roomed cottage which he called the Parsonage and found too large for his needs.
On the sitting-room table lay a letter, in a large blue envelope with a red seal.
III.
That same day, and soon after three o'clock in the afternoon, Parson
Jack knocked at the door of St. Cadox Rectory.
The Rector, a widower, usually ate his dinner in the middle of the day, and immediately afterwards retired to his study (with a glass of hot brandy-and-water), presumably to meditate. At Parson Jack's entrance he started up from his arm-chair with a flushed face and a somewhat incoherent greeting, in the middle of which he suddenly observed that his friend's face, too, was agitated.
"But what brings you? Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"No—o," answered Parson Jack dubiously. Then, "Oh no; on the contrary, I came to ask if you have any books bearing on this part of the world— county histories, ecclesiastical histories, and the like—especially ecclesiastical histories. I want to read up about Langona."
The Rector's eyes twinkled. "This is rather sudden, eh?"
"After five-and-twenty years? I suppose it is." Parson Jack blushed like a schoolboy; but he laughed, nevertheless, for he held news, and it bubbled within him.
"Preparing a lecture?"
"No; the fact is"—he straightened his face—"I've just learnt of my brother Lionel's death in India. I've never seen him since we were boys," he added apologetically.
"H'm, h'm." The Rector paid his respect to Death in a serious little cough. "Still, I don't quite understand—"
"He has left me five thousand pounds."
"Ah? A very tidy sum—my dear Flood, I congratulate you; with all my heart I do. You have the prospect now of many happy days." He shook his friend's hand warmly. "But—excuse me—what has this to do with reading ecclesiastical history, of Langona or any other place?"
"Well," Parson Jack answered shyly, sitting down and filling his pipe,
"I thought of restoring the church."
"My dear fellow, don't be a fool—if I may speak profanely. Five thousand pounds is a tidy sum, no doubt, in Langona especially. But you'll be leaving Langona. You can buy yourself a decent little living, or retire and set up comfortably as a bachelor on two hundred and fifty pounds a year, with a cob, and a gig as you grow older."
Parson Jack shook his head. "I've been paying debts all my life, with the help of Langona," said he, puffing slowly. "And now I see that I owe the place repayment. But it isn't that exactly," he went on with a quickening voice and another of his shy blushes, "and I don't want you to mistake that for the real reason. The fact is, I'm attached to the place—to the church especially. It seems a silly thing to say, when I haven't troubled to learn ten words of its history, and don't know Norman work from—well, from any but my own." He laughed grimly, biting on his pipe-stem. "But that can be mended, I suppose—and the old barn has become a sort of companion—and that's about the long and short of it."
The Rector leaned forward and tapped the bowl of his pipe reflectively on the fender-bars.
"You are the residuary legatee, I take it. Your brother was unmarried?"
"Oh dear, no! Lionel was married, and had three children—two girls and a boy: 'has,' I should say, for I imagine they're all alive—the widow, too. I don't know where they are. The lawyers merely speak of my five thousand as a legacy; they say nothing of the rest of the will."
"That's queer." The Rector reached for his tobacco-jar.
"Eh? You mean my not knowing the whereabouts of the family? Between ourselves, I believe there was a screw loose in Lionel's domestic affairs. I know nothing definite—positively. We corresponded now and then," continued Parson Jack—"say twice a year—and of late years he dropped all mention of them, and I gathered that questions were not wanted. But the wife and children are provided for, you may depend; and there's the pension."
"You are not an executor even?"
"No; it seems there were two; but one died. The survivor, a Major Bromham, lives in Plymouth—retired, apparently, and I suppose an old friend of Lionel's. It's through his solicitors that I had the news."
"And with it the first announcement of your brother's death. It seems queer to me that this Major Bromham didn't send you a line of his own. How do the lawyers put it?"
"Oh, the barest announcement. Here it is; you can read for yourself: 'On the instruction of our client, Major Bromham, late 16th Bengal Lancers, we have to inform you of the death, by syncope, at Calcutta, on the 5th of July last, of your brother, Lionel Flood, Esq., late of the Indian Civil Service, Assistant-Commissioner; and also that by the terms of his will, executed'—so-and-so—'of which our client is the surviving executor,' etc.—all precious formal and cold-blooded. No doubt his death was telegraphed home to the newspapers, and they take it for granted that I heard or read of it."
"Perhaps." The Rector rose. "Shall we have a stroll through the stables? Afterwards you shall have a book or two to carry off."
"But look here, Kendall; I came to you as a friend, you know. It seems to me all plain sailing enough. But you seem to imply—"
"Do I? Then I am doubtless an ass."
"You think this Major Bromham should have written to me direct—I see that you do. Well, he lives no farther away than Plymouth. I might run up and call on him. Why, to be sure"—Parson Jack's brow cleared—"and he can give me the address of the wife and children."
IV.
Parson Jack walked home with a volume of Gilbert's Survey and another of the Parochial History of Cornwall under his arm, and Parker's Glossary in his skirt pocket. He began that evening with the Parochial History, article "Langona," and smoked his pipe over it till midnight in a sort of rapture it would be hard to analyse. In fact, no doubt it was made up of that childish delight which most men feel on reading in print what they know perfectly well already. "The eastern end of the north aisle is used as a vestry, and the eastern end of the south aisle is impropriated to the church-warden's use." Yes, that was right. And the inscription on the one marble tablet was correctly given, and the legend over the south porch: "Ego sum Janua, per me qui intrabit Servabitur" But the delight of recognition was mixed with that of discovery. The lower part of the tower was Early English, the upper Perpendicular (a pause here, and a reference to Parker); the nave, too, Perpendicular. Ah, then, it could only have been the upper part— the belfry—which fell in and destroyed the nave. What was the date?— 1412. And they both had been rebuilt together—on the call of Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter—in the August of that year. He read on, the familiar at each step opening new bypaths into the unguessed. But the delight of delights was to hug, while he read, his purpose to change all this story of ruin, to give it a new and happier chapter, to stand out eminent among the forgotten Vicars of Langona. . . .
The book slid from his knee to the floor with a crash. He picked it up carefully, turned down the lamp, laughed to himself, and went off to bed, shivering but happy.
He awoke to fresh day-dreams. Day-dreams filled the next week with visions of the church in all its destined beauty. To be sure, they were extravagant enough, fantasies in which flying buttresses and flamboyant traceries waltzed around solid Norman and rigid Perpendicular, nightmares of undigested Parker. But they kept Parson Jack happy.
He had not forgotten to answer Messrs. Cudmore's letter, thanking them for their information, and adding that he proposed to pay a visit to Plymouth, and would call upon Major Bromham, with that gentleman's leave, and discuss the legacy. They replied that their client was just then in the north of Devon on a shooting-party, but would return to Plymouth by an afternoon train on the following Wednesday and grant Mr. Flood an interview.
The tone of this letter, as of the previous one, was unmistakably cold, but Parson Jack read nothing more in it than professional formality. On the Wednesday, however, when he reached Plymouth, he presented himself at Messrs. Cudmore's office, and was admitted to see the head of the firm, the manner of his reception began to puzzle him.
"Mr.—ah—Flood?" began Mr. Cudmore senior, with the faintest possible bow. "Our client, Major Bromham, is not returning until late this afternoon—by the four-forty train, in fact. I myself dictated the letter in reply to yours, and fancied I had made it explicit."
"Oh, quite. I called merely in the hope that you would give me some further information about my brother's will; since, apart from this legacy, I know nothing."
"You must excuse me, but I prefer to leave that to the Major. In any case, the will is to be proved without delay, and may then, as you know, be inspected for a shilling."
Parson Jack, guileless man that he was, had a way of putting a straight question. "I want to know," said he quietly, "why on earth you are treating me like this?"
"My dear sir—" began the lawyer. But Parson Jack cut him short.
"I, for my part, will be plain with you. I ask to see the will simply because I know nothing of my brother's property, and wish to see how his wife and children are provided for. There is nothing extraordinary in that, surely?"
"H'm"—the lawyer pondered, eyeing him. Clearly there was something in
this shabbily dressed clergyman which countered his expectations.
"The person who could best satisfy you on this point would be Mrs.
Flood herself; but I take it you have no desire to see her personally."
"Mrs. Flood? Do you mean my brother's wife?"
"Certainly."
"But—but is she here—in Plymouth?" Parson Jack's eyes opened wide.
"I presume so. Hoe Terrace, she informs me, has been her address for these eight years. But of course you are aware—"
"Aware, sir? I am aware of nothing. Least of all am I aware of any reason why I should not call upon her. Hoe Terrace, did you say? What number?"
"Thirty-four. You will bear in mind that I have not advised—"
"Oh, dear me, no; you have advised nothing. Good-morning, Mr. Cudmore!"
And Parson Jack, fuming, found himself in the street.
He filled and lit his pipe, to soothe his humour. But he forgot that the clergy of Plymouth do not as a rule smoke clay pipes in the public streets, and the attention he excited puzzled and angered him yet further. He set it down to his threadbare coat and rustic boots. It was in no sweet mood that he strode up Hoe Terrace, eyeing the numbers above the doors, and halted at length to knock out his pipe before a house with an unpainted area-railing, to which a small boy in ragged knickerbockers was engaged in attaching with a string the tail of a protesting puppy.
"I shouldn't do that if I were you," said Parson Jack, rapping the bowl of his pipe against his boot-heel.
"I don't suppose you would," retorted the small boy. "But then there's some parsons wouldn't smoke a clay."
Before Parson Jack could discover a repartee the door opened and a young man with a weak chin and bright yellow boots came out laughing, followed by a good-looking girl, who turned on the step to close the door behind her. Although in black, she was outrageously over-dressed. An enormous black feather nodded above her "picture" hat, and with one hand she held up her skirt, revealing a white embroidered petticoat deplorably stained with mud.
In the act of turning she caught sight of the small boy, and at once began to rate him.
"Haven't I told you fifty times to let that dog alone? Go indoors this instant and get yourself cleaned! For my part, I don't know what Tillotson means, letting you out of school so early."
"I haven't been to school," the boy announced, catching at a dirty sheet of newspaper which fluttered against the railing, and nonchalantly folding it into a cocked hat.
"Your mumps have been all right for a week. There's not the slightest risk of infection, and you know it. You don't tell me you've persuaded mother—"
"I haven't said a word to her," the boy interrupted. "It isn't mumps; it's these breeches. If you can't find time to darn 'em, I'm not going to school till somebody can."
The young man tittered, and the girl—with a toss of her head and a glance at Parson Jack, who was pretending to tie his boot-lace—accepted defeat.
"Where did you pick up that puppy?" asked Parson Jack, after watching the pair up the street.
"What's that to you?"
"Nothing at all; only I'm a judge of wire-haired terriers, and he has a touch of breed somewhere. Well, if you won't answer that question, I'll try you with another. Is that Gertrude—or Ada?" He nodded up the street.
"That's Ada. Gertrude is indoors, trimming a hat. You seem to know a heap about us."
"Not much; but I'm going to call and find out more if I can. You're
Richard, I suppose?"
"Dick, for short. Ring the bell, if you like, and I'll run round and open the door. Only don't say I didn't warn you." This sounded like an absurd echo of the lawyer, and set Parson Jack smiling. "We don't subscribe to anything, or take any truck in parsons; and the slavey has a whitlow on her finger, and mother's having fits over the cooking. But come in, if you want to."
"Thank you, I will."
While Parson Jack ascended to the front door and rang at the bell, Dick skipped down the area steps, and presently opened to him with a mock start of surprise. "Beg your pardon," said he, "but I took you for the rates, or the broker's man." He winked as he ushered in the visitor. The running click of a sewing-machine sounded above stairs, and up from the basement floated an aroma of fried onions, and filled the passage.
"First turning to the right!" admonished the boy, and stepping past him, to the head of the basement stairs, called down: "Mother! I say, mother, here's a gentleman to see you!"
"Then," came the answer, "tell Gerty to step down and find out what he wants. I'm busy."
Parson Jack discreetly shut the door, and fell to studying the not over-clean drawing-room, which was tricked out with muslin draperies, cheap Japanese fans, photographs—mostly of officers in the uniform of the Royal Marines—and such artistic trifles as painted tambourines, sabots, drain-pipes, and milking-stools. In one wicker-chair—the wicker daubed with royal-red enamel—lay a banjo; in another was curled a sleeping terrier—indubitable mother of the puppy outside. Near the door stood a piano with a comic opera score on the music-rest, open at No. 12, "I'm a Cheery Fusileery—O!" and on its rosewood top an ash-tray full of cigarette-ends and a shaded lamp the base of which needed wiping.
The terrier awoke, yawned, and was waddling down from its couch to make friends, when Master Dick returned.
"Mother wants to know who you are and what's your business.
Gerty wouldn't come down when she heard you weren't Jack Phillips."
"Then tell your mother that I am your uncle, John Flood. That will satisfy her, perhaps."
"Whe—ew!" Dick took him in from top to toe, in a long incredulous stare; but turned and went without another word.
It may have been five minutes before the door opened and Mrs. Flood entered, with an air nicely balanced between curiosity, hauteur, and injured innocence—a shabby-genteel woman, in a widow's cap and a black cashmere gown which had been too near the frying-pan.
"Good morning."
Mrs. Flood bowed stiffly, not to say stonily, folded her wrists accurately in front of her, over her waistband, and waited.
"I am John Flood, you know—poor Lionel's brother. I have just come from Cudmore & Cudmore's, the solicitors, to talk with you, if I may, about this will. It seems that I have a legacy, but beyond this I know nothing, and indeed until Messrs. Cudmore wrote I wasn't even aware of an illness."
Mrs. Flood's eyes seemed to answer, if such a thing could be said in a ladylike way, that he might tell that to the Marines. But, without relenting their hostility, she took occasion to mop them.
"It was a cruel will," she murmured. "My husband and I had differences; in fact, we have lived apart for many years. Still—" She broke off. "You know, of course, that he went wrong—took to living with natives and adopted their horrible ways—in the end, I believe, turned Hindu."
"God bless my soul! But he used to write regularly—up to the end."
"No doubt." The two words were full of spiteful meaning, though what that meaning was Parson Jack could not guess.
"His letters gave no hint of—of this."
Again Mrs. Flood's bitter smile gave him—politely—the lie.
"He drank, too," she went on, after a cold pause. "I had always supposed it was the one thing those natives didn't do. We thought of contesting the will on the ground of undue influence and his mind being gone."
"Did Lionel leave them much, then?"
"'Them'?" she queried.
"His friends over there—the natives."
"He left nothing but this legacy of five thousand pounds, and the residue in equal shares to his poor family." Here her handkerchief came into play again. "Only, as it turns out, there isn't any residue— scarcely a penny more when all is realised—except the pension, of course." Unmasking her batteries with sudden spite, she added, "Even between you I couldn't be robbed of that!"
Parson Jack controlled himself. He was genuinely sorry for the woman. But either cheek showed a red spot and his voice shook a little as he answered, "This is a trifle gratuitous, then—your talk about undue influence."
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," replied Mrs. Flood, with a small and vicious titter; not because she believed him to be guilty or that it would do any good, but simply because her instinct told her it would hurt.
"That seems to close the discussion." Parson Jack bowed with honest, if clumsy, dignity. "I am sorry, madam, for what you have told me; but my regrets had better be expressed to Major Bromham."
"Regrets, indeed!" sniffed Mrs. Flood.
And these were the last words he ever heard from her. A minute later he found himself in the street, walking towards the Hoe and drawing deep breaths as his lungs felt the sea-breeze. He had not the least notion of his direction; but as he went he muttered to himself; and for a parson's his words sounded deplorably like swearing.
"Hi! hi!" called a shrill voice behind him. He swung right about and found himself frowning down upon Master Dick.
"How did you like it?" inquired that youngster, panting. "She's a caution, the mater; but it wasn't a patch on what I've heard her promise to give you if ever she sets eyes on you."
"Indeed? How do you know, pray?"
"Why, I listened at the door, of course," was the unabashed reply.
"But I don't believe a word of it, you know," he added reassuringly.
"A word of what?"
"That rot about undue influence."
"I thank you. Did you follow me to tell me this?"
"Well, I dunno. Yes, I guess I did. You're a white man; I saw that at once, though you do smoke a clay pipe."
"Thank you again for the reminder." Parson Jack pulled out his clay and filled it. "So I'm a white man?"
Dick nodded. "I'm not saying anything about the legacy. That's hard lines on us, of course; but I believe you. There's no chance of my being a gentleman now, like you; but"—with a wry grin—"I'm not the sort of chap to bear malice."
They had walked on through the gate leading to the Hoe, and were in full view now of the splendid panorama of the Sound.
"And why shouldn't you be a gentleman?" asked Parson Jack, halting and cocking down an eye upon this queer urchin.
"Well, there's a goodish bit against it, you'll allow. You saw what we're like at home." He looked up at Parson Jack frankly enough, but into his speech there crept a strange embarrassment, too old for his years. "I mean, you saw enough without my telling you; and I mustn't give the show away."
"No, to be sure," assented Parson Jack. "Dick, you've the makings of a good fellow," he added musingly.
But the boy's eyes had wandered to the broad sheet of water below. "Crikey, there she goes!" he cried, and jerked his arm towards an unwieldy battle-ship nosing her way out of the Hamoaze, her low bows tracing a thin line of white. For half a minute they stood watching her.
"She's ugly enough, in all conscience," commented Parson Jack.
"She's a holy terror. But perhaps you don't believe in turrets. Nor do
I, to that extent. It's tempting Providence."
"In what way?"
"Top-hamper," said Dick shortly. "But she's a terror all the same."
"What's her name, I wonder?"
"Sakes! You don't say you don't know the old Devastation? Why, it's fifteen years or so since they launched her at Portsmouth, and I hear tell she'll have to be reconstructed, though even then I guess they won't trust her far at sea. She has no speed, either, for these days. Oh, she's a holy fraud!" And Master Dick poured in a broadside of expert criticism as the monster felt her way and slowly headed around the Winter Buoy into the Smeaton Pass.
"Nevertheless, you wouldn't object to be on board of her?"
"Don't!" The boy's eyes had filled on a sudden. "You mayn't mean it, but it—it hurts."
Four hours later, in the early dusk, Parson Jack stepped into the street, after shaking hands with Major Bromham at the door. What is more, the Major stood bareheaded in the doorway for some moments, and stared after him. Dick had echoed Lawyer Cudmore once that day; it was now the Major's turn to echo Dick.
"That's a white man," he muttered to himself. "Curiously like his brother, too—in the days before he went wrong. But Lionel Flood had a soft strake in him, and India found it out. This parson seems tougher— result of hard work and plain living, no doubt."
His musings at this point grew involved, and he frowned. "Says he knew nothing of Lionel's affairs—offers to show me all the letters to prove it; but this behaviour of his is proof enough. Deuced handsome behaviour, too. I wonder if he can afford it? Gad, what a pack of falsehoods that woman has poured into me! She always had a gift of circumstantial lying. I believe, if Lionel had kept a tight rein on her and shown her the whip now and then—but what's the use of speculating? Anyway, it's rough on the Parson, and if I hadn't to consider Dick and the girls—"
Dusk had given way to gaslight, and Parson Jack still paced the streets, intending but still deferring to find a dinner and a night's lodging. He had shaken hands with Major Bromham in a mood of curious exaltation. He had decided almost without a struggle. To his mind the question was a clear one of right and wrong, and no argument helped it. Still, a man does not renounce five thousand pounds every day of his life; and, when he does, has some right to pat his conscience on the back. He derived some pleasure, too, from picturing the pretty gratitude with which his beneficiaries would hear Major Bromham's message. He did not know Mrs. Flood.
But . . . his church? He had forgotten it, or almost forgotten; and the recollection came upon him like a blow. He halted beneath a gas-lamp in dismay; not in resentment at the shattering of his dream, for he scarcely thought of himself; not in doubt, for he had done rightly, and his church could not be restored at the expense of right; but in sheer dismay before the blank certainty that now his church must fall. Nothing could save it. He must go home to it, live with it, watch it to the inevitable end. He put out a hand against the iron pillar, and of a sudden felt faint, almost sick. As a matter of fact, he had eaten nothing since his early breakfast.
A few doors down the street the bright lamp of a tavern—the Sword and Flag—caught his eye. He tottered in and asked for a glass of brandy. It did him good, and he called for another. Some soldiers entering, with a girl or two, and finding a clergyman seated with his glass in this not over-reputable den, began to chaff. He answered gently and good-naturedly, but with a slight stutter—enough to hint at fun ahead; and they improved upon the hint. By nine o'clock Parson Jack was silly drunk; at eleven, when the premises were closed, the police found him speechless; and the rest of the night he spent in the borough lock-up.
V.
It appeared in the newspapers, of course. "Deplorable story: A clergyman fined for drunkenness." This was more than even Sir Harry could stand.
"I'm sorry for you, Flood," said he, when, three days later, Parson Jack appeared at Carwithiel to resign his living. "But you've taken the only proper course. Otherwise, you'd have driven us to an inquiry, sequestration, no end of a scandal. I've had to keep my eyes shut once or twice in the past, as you probably guess."
"You have shown me all the kindness you could," answered Parson Jack. "I won't disgust you with thanks, and there are no excuses." He picked up his hat and turned to go.
"Well, but look here; don't be in a hurry. What about your prospects? They're none too healthy, I'm afraid. Still, if a few pounds could give you a fresh start somewhere—"
"I have no prospects, but for the moment I wasn't thinking of myself.
I was thinking of Langona and the old church."
"Oh, the church is all right! Clem—my nephew—has a fad in his head. He asked me yesterday for the living—in case you resigned. I tell him it's folly; a youngster oughtn't to play with his chances. But he insists that it will do him good to fling up Oxford and play parish-priest for a year or two. He has taken a fancy to your church, and wants to restore it. He can pay for his whims: the money's all in his branch of the family."
"Restore it! The church—restored!"
Sir Harry looked up sharply, for the words came in a whisper of awe, almost of terror; and looking up, he saw Parson Jack's eyes dilated as a man's who stares on a vision; but while they stared there grew in them a slow, beatific surmise.
"The Lord taketh away," said Parson Jack. "Blessed be the name of the
Lord!"
Six weeks later the Rev. Clement Vyell was inducted into the living of Langona, vacant by the resignation of the Rev. John Flood. His first sermon announced that the church was to be restored without delay; that plans were even now being prepared by an eminent architect, and that, as soon as they arrived and were approved, tenders would be invited.
Mr. Vyell was in no hurry to take possession of the Parsonage; indeed, bachelor though he was, and professed ascetic, he decided that, to be habitable, it needed a wing and a new kitchen at the back. For the present he accepted his uncle's invitation to use the hospitality, and the library, of Carwithiel. Parson Jack might give up possession at his own convenience. Nevertheless he gave it up at once, packed his few belongings, and hired a bedroom at the Widow Copping's. It appeared that he, too, needed time to look about him.
And so he loitered about Langona until the architect's plans were received, discussed, approved, and submitted to tender. A Bristol builder secured the contract.
The day after it was signed Parson Jack walked over to Carwithiel again, and asked leave to speak with Mr. Vyell. He wore his old working suit.
"I have come to ask a favour, sir," said he, speaking humbly. "I hear that the contract for the church has been given to Miles & Co., of Bristol; and I would take it kindly if you recommended me to them as a workman."
The new Vicar was taken by surprise, and showed it.
"I have picked up some knowledge of the work in these years," Parson Jack explained timidly. "And I know the weak points in the old fabric better than most men. As for steadiness," he wound up, "I only ask to be given a trial. You must discharge me the first time I give cause of complaint."
"What on earth could I say to the man?" Mr. Vyell demanded that evening, when he discussed the application with his uncle.
"I hope you accepted?" said Sir Harry sharply.
"Ye-es, though I fear it was imprudent."
"Fiddlestick! Speak a word for him to Miles; he won't find a better workman."
So Parson Jack stayed at Langona, and beheld his best dream take shape, though not at his command, and yet in part by his fashioning. Nay, even some measure of that personal pride for which he had once bargained was restored to him during the second year, on the day when the contractor— who shared the common knowledge of his past, but respected his unequalled knowledge of the old fabric and its weakness, his gentle ardour in learning, and his mild authority among the men—appointed him clerk of the works. In those days Parson Jack needed no man's pity, for all day long he redeemed a debt and wrought into substance an ambition that yet grew purer—as few ambitions do—in taking substance. And with it he wove another dream which, in the intervals of labour, would draw him out of the churchyard and hold him at gaze there, with his eyes on the wedge of blue sea beyond the coombe.
From the hour of his fall no strong drink passed his lips. His was an almost desperate case, but he fought with two strong allies. It was as though the old church, rallying under his eyes for a new lease of life, put new blood into him, repaying his love. Also he had Dick's letters.
"Upon my word," said Sir Harry to his nephew, "I've a mind to put Flood into the living again when this business is over and you tire of your whim. I suppose there's nothing to prevent it?"
There was nothing to prevent it; but as a reward it lay outside Parson Jack's speculation, perhaps beyond his desire. His reward came to him on the afternoon when, having mounted a ladder beside the new east window, he looked over his shoulder and saw Parson Kendall entering the churchyard by the lych-gate, and ushering in a youngster—a mere boy still, but splendid in the uniform of a freshly blown naval cadet.
Parson Jack can scarcely be said to have risen to the occasion.
"Hullo, Dick!" he said, descending the ladder and holding out his hand.
But the Rector, standing aside, made a better speech; though this, too, was short enough.
"God fulfils Himself in many ways," said the Rector to himself.
THE BURGLARY CLUB.
"Yes," said the Judge, "I ought by this time to know something of
Cornish juries. They acquit oftener than other juries, to be sure; and
the general notion is that they incline more towards mercy.
Privately, I believe that mercy has very little to do with it."
"Stupidity," said the High Sheriff sententiously, and sipped his wine. His own obtuseness on the Bench was notorious, and had kept adding for thirty years to the Duchy's stock of harmless merriment.
"Nothing of the sort," snapped his lordship. "You can convict a man, I presume, as stupidly as you can acquit him. No: with other juries a crime is a crime, and a misdemeanour is a misdemeanour. You tell them so and they accept it. But with Cornishmen you have first to explain that the alleged offence is illegal; next, you must satisfy them that it ought to be illegal; and then, if you choose, you can proceed to prove that the prisoner committed it. They will finally discharge him on the ground that he never had the advantage of such a clear exposition of the law as they have just enjoyed."
"Well, but isn't that stupidity?" persisted the High Sheriff.
The Judge turned impatiently and addressed a grey-headed man on his left. "Did I ever tell you, Mr.—, how I once enjoyed the hospitality of a Cornish village, through the simple accident of being mistaken for a burglar?"
The grey-headed man—an eminent Q.C. and leader of the Western Circuit— dropped an olive into his glass of sherry. He had been dozing. Two or three guests and members of the Junior Bar drew their chairs closer.
"It was in 1845," the Judge began, "just after I had taken my degree, and I had been walking through Cornwall with a knapsack—no small adventure, I can tell you, in those days. The inhabitants declined to believe that anyone could walk and carry a pack for the fun of the thing, and I left a trail of suspicion behind me. The folks were invariably hospitable, though convinced that I was pursuing no good. You remember, Mr.—, that when Telemachus visited Gerenia he was generously entertained, and afterwards politely asked if he happened to be a pirate. My case was pretty similar, only my Cornish hosts did not ask, but took it for granted.
"In the first week of August—to be precise, on the 4th—I reached Polreen Cove, and found lodging at the small inn. The spot and the people so pleased me that I engaged my rooms for a week. At the week's end I had decided to stay for a month. I stayed for almost two months.
"Well, as luck would have it, I had not been in Polreen three nights before there happened the first burglary within the memory of its oldest inhabitant—if burglary it was. I incline to think that Mrs. Giddy, the general dealer, had left her shop-door unbolted, and that the culprit, after removing the bell—the door had two flaps, and the bell, hung on a half-coil of metal, was fitted to a socket inside the lower flap—had quietly walked in and made his choice. This choice was a peculiar one— six bars of yellow soap, a cullender, some tallow candles, a pair of alpaca boots, a pair of braces, several boxes of matches, an uncertain amount of cheese, a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs, a coloured almanack, three of Mrs. Giddy's brass weights, and the bell. He was detected two months later at Bristol, in the act of using one of the handkerchiefs, which illustrated the descent of Moses from Mount Sinai; and four other handkerchiefs were found in his possession, together with Mrs. Giddy's brass weights. He had disposed of the rest of the booty, and proved to be a stowaway who had been turned out of a Cardiff schooner on Penzance quay, penniless and starving. Nothing further was proved against him, and it still puzzles me how he made his way through the length of Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset, on the not very nutritious spoils of Mrs. Giddy's shop.
"For the moment he got clear away. Not a soul in Polreen had set eyes on him, and as he entered the village by night so he departed.
"I know now that the excitement in the Cove was intense; that for weeks afterwards the women carried their silver teaspoons and chinaware to bed with them; and I should explain that the housewives of Polreen are inordinately proud of their teaspoons and chinaware—heirlooms which mark the only degrees of social importance recognised among the inhabitants of that happy Cove. A family there counts its teaspoons as our old nobility counted its quarterings; a girl is judged to have made a good, bad, or indifferent match by the number of teaspoons she 'marries into'; and the extreme act of disinheritance is symbolised, not by the testamentary shilling, nor by erasing a name from the Family Bible, but by alienating the family plate-basket. In short, teaspoons are to the Covers what the salt-cellar was to the ancient Latin races.
"But at the time, though I could not help observing symptoms of suppressed excitement, the Cove behaved with an outward calm which struck me as highly creditable. To be sure, the men seemed to spend an extravagant amount of their time in the tap-room of the inn, which happened to be immediately beneath my sitting-room. Hour after hour the sound of their muffled conversation ascended to me through the planching, as I sat and studied—Dumas, I think. Low, monotonous, untiring, it lasted from breakfast-time until nine o'clock at night, when it ceased abruptly, the company dispersed, and each man went home to reassure and protect his wife. I suppose some liquor was required to start this conversation and keep it going, just as seamen use a bucketful of water to start a ship's pump; but I must admit that during my whole stay at Polreen I never saw an inhabitant who could be described as the worse for drink.
"I did not know that this assemblage in the tap-room was unusual and clean contrary to the men's habits, and therefore may be excused for not guessing its significance. Nor was I familiar enough with Polreen to note an even more frequent change in the atmosphere and routine of its daily life. When the weather is fine, down there, the men put out to sea and the women go about their work with smiles. When it blows, the women go about their work, but resignedly and in a temper, which the men avoid by ranging up shoulder to shoulder along the wall by the lifeboat house, and gazing with approval at the weather; with approval, because it relieves them of the fatigue of argument. But should the day break doubtfully, and the men incline to give themselves the benefit of the doubt, then, indeed, you will learn who are masters of the Cove. For in extreme cases the women will even invade the 'randivoo,' and shrill is the noise of battle until the weather declares unmistakably for one side or the other. Does it refuse to declare itself? Then I can promise you that half an hour will see the men routed and straggling down the beach to their boats, arching their backs and ducking their heads, may be, under the parting volley.
"But, as I say, I did not know Polreen and its ways. It awoke no wonder in me to see the bulk of its male population ranged like statues, day after day, and from dawn till eve, against the wall by the lifeboat house, talking little (or ceasing, at any rate, to talk when I approached), smoking much, conning a serene sky, and the dimples spread on the sea by a gentle nor'-westerly breeze. At intervals one or two would leisurely fall out of the line and saunter towards the inn, leaving their places to others as leisurely sauntering from the inn. It did, indeed, occur to me to wonder how they earned their living, for during the first fortnight, beyond the occasional hauling of a crab-pot, I saw no evidence at all of labour. It was on the tip of my tongue, once or twice, to question them; but, though polite, they clearly had no wish to be communicative.
"I found great difficulty in hiring a boat and the services of its owner. I wished to be rowed along the coast; to try for pollack; to inspect some of Polreen's famous caves. The men were polite again; but one boat leaked badly, another had been pulled up for the carpenter to insert a new strake, a third was too heavy, the owner of a fourth could not leave his business—it wouldn't pay him! At length I patched up a bargain with an old fisherman named Udy—or rather Old Tom Udy, to distinguish him from his son, who was Young Tom. He owned the most ramshackle old boat in the Cove: if the others were out of repair, his was manifestly beyond it. I took my life in my hands and struck the bargain.
"'When do 'ee want her?'
"'Now, at once,' said I; 'or as soon as you have had your dinner.'
"He went back to the company by the lifeboat house. He reminded me of some ancient king consulting a company of stone gods. They looked at him, and he looked at them. I suppose a word or two was said; half a dozen of them spat reflectively; nobody moved. Old Tom Udy came down the beach again; we embarked and pushed off, and the row of expressionless faces watched us from the shore.
"In silence we visited the famous caverns. As we emerged from the last of these I essayed some casual talk. To tell the truth, I was beginning to feel the want of it, and of course I began on the first topic of local interest—the burglary.
"'The odd thing to me,' said I, 'is that you seem to have no particular suspicions.'
"'I'd rather you didn' talk of it,' said Old Tom Udy. 'I got my living to get, and 'tis a day's journey to Bodmin. Tho' you musn' think,' he added, 'that we bear any gridge.'
"'It seems to me that you men in the Cove treat the whole affair very lightly.'
"'Iss, tha's of it,' he assented. 'Mind you, tisn' right, Seemin' to me 'tis a terrible thought. Here you be, for the sake of argument, a Christian man, and in beauty next door to the angels, and the only use you make of it is to steal groceries. You don't think I'm putting it too strong?'
"' Not a bit.'
"'Well, I'm glad o' that, because, since you ask me, as a professing Christian, I cudn' say any less. But you musn' think we bear any gridge.'
"'I'm sure I wonder you don't. And the police still have no clue?'
"'The police? You mean Sammy Crego, the constable? Why, I've knawed en from a boy—pretty thing if any person in Polreen listened to he! No: us han't failed so low yet as to mind anything the constable says.'
"'Then the whole affair is as much a mystery as ever?'
"'Now, look 'ee here; I don't want to tell nothin' more about it. A still tongue makes a wise head; an' there's a pollack on the end of your line.'
"The wind stuck in the north-west, and day after day the regal summer weather continued. I grew tired of hauling in pollack, and determined to have a try for the more exciting conger. The fun of this, as you know, does not begin till night-fall, and it was seven o'clock in the evening, or thereabouts, when we pushed off from the beach. By eight we had reached the best grounds and begun operations. An hour passed, or a little more, and then Old Tom Udy asked when I thought of returning.
"'Why, bless the man,' said I, 'we've not had a bite yet!'
"He glanced at me furtively while he lit a pipe. 'I reckoned, maybe, you might have business ashore, so to speak.'
"'What earthly business should I have in Polreen at this hour?'
"'Aw, well . . . you know best . . . no affair o' mine. 'Tis a dark night, too.'
"'All the better for conger, eh?'
"'So 'tis.' He seemed about to say more, but at that moment I felt a long pull on the line, and for an hour or two the conger kept us busy.
"It must have been a week later, at least (for the moon was drawing to the full), that I pulled up the blind of my sitting-room a little before mid-night, and, ravished by the beauty of the scene (for, I tell you, Polreen can be beautiful by moonlight), determined to stroll down to the beach and smoke my last pipe there before going to bed. The door of the inn was locked, no doubt; but, the house standing on the steep slope of the main street, I could step easily on to the edge of the water-barrel beneath my window and lower myself to the ground.
"I did so. Just as I touched solid earth I heard footsteps. They paused suddenly, and, glancing up the moonlit road, I descried the gigantic figure of Wesley Truscott, the coxswain of the lifeboat. He must have seen me, for the light on the whitewashed front of the inn was almost as brilliant as day. But, whatever his business, he had no wish to meet me, for he dodged aside into the shadow of a porch, and after a few seconds I heard him tip-toeing up the hill again.
"I began to have my doubts about Polreen's primitive virtues. Certainly the village, as it lay bathed in moonlight, its whitewashed terraces and glimmering roofs embowered in dark clusters of fuchsia and tamarisk, seemed to harbour nothing but peace and sleeping innocence. An ebbing tide lapped the pebbles on the beach, each pebble distinct and glistening as the water left it. Far in the quiet offing the lights of a fishing-fleet twinkled like a line of jewels through the haze.
"Half-way down the beach I turned for a backward look at the village.
"Now the wall by the lifeboat house looks on the Cove. Its front is turned from the village and the village street, and can only be seen from the beach. You may imagine my surprise, then, as I turned and found myself face to face with a dozen tall men, standing there upright and silent.
"'Good Heavens!' I cried, 'what is the matter? What brings you all here at this time of night?'
"If I was surprised, they were obviously embarrassed. They drew together a little, as if to avoid observation. But the moon shone full on the wall, affording them not a scrap of shadow.
"For a moment no one answered. Then I heard mutterings, and, as I stepped up, one of the elder men, Archelaus Warne by name, was pushed forward.
"'We wasn' expectin' of you down here,' he stammered, after clearing his throat.
"'No reason why you should,' said I.
"'We done our best to keep out o' your way—never thinkin' you'd be after the boats,'—he nodded towards the boats drawn up on the beach at our feet.
"'I'm afraid I don't understand you in the least.'
"'Well, you see, 'tis a kind o' club.'
"'Indeed?' said I, not in the least enlightened.
"'Iss;' he turned to his companions. 'I s'pose I'd better tell en?' They nodded gravely, and he resumed. 'You see, 'tis this way: ever since that burglary there's no resting for the women. My poor back is blue all over with the cloam my missus takes to bed. And ha'f a dozen times a night 'tis, 'Arch'laus, I'm sartin I hear some person movin'— Arch'laus, fit an' take a light and have a look downstairs, that's a dear!' An' these fellows'll tell 'ee 'tis every bit so bad with they. 'Tis right enough in the daytime, so long as the women got us 'ithin hail, but by night there's no peace nor rest.'
"One or two husbands corroborated.
"'Well, now—I think 'twas the third night after this affair happened— I crep' downstairs for the fifth time or so just to ease the old woman's mind, and opens the door, when what do I see but Billy Polkinghorne here, sittin' on his own doorstep like a lost dog. 'Aw,' says I, 'so thee'rt feelin' of it, too!' 'Feelin' of it!' says he, 'durned if this isn' the awnly place I can get a wink o' sleep!' 'Come'st way long to Wall-end and tetch pipe,' says I. Tha's how it began. An' now, ever since Billy thought 'pon the plan of settin' someone, turn an' turn, to watch your window, there's nothin' to hurry us. Why, only just as you came along, Billy was saying, 'Burglary!' he says, 'why, I han't been so happy in mind since the Indian Queen came ashore!''
"'Watch my window? Why the—' And then, as light broke on me, 'Look here,' I said, 'you don't mean to tell me you've been suspecting me of the burglary all this time!'
"'You musn' think,' said Archelaus Warne, 'that we bear any gridge.'"
"Well," the Judge concluded, "as I told you, the thief was apprehended a week or two later, and my innocence established. But, oddly enough, some thirty years after I had to try a case at the Assizes here, in which Archelaus Warne (very old and infirm) appeared as a witness, I recognised him at once, and, when I sent for him afterwards and inquired after my friends at Polreen, his first words were, 'There now—I wasn' so far wrong, after all! I knawed you must be mixed up with these things, wan way or 'nother.'"
CONCERNING ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.
Let those who know my affection for Troy consider what my feelings were, the other day, when on my return from a brief jaunt to London I alighted at the railway station amid all the tokens of a severe and general catastrophe. The porter who opened the door for me had a bandaged head. George the 'bus driver carried his right arm in a sling, but professed himself able to guide his vehicle through our tortuous streets left-handed. I had declined the offer, and was putting some sympathetic question, when a procession came by. Four children of serious demeanour conveyed a groaning comrade on a stretcher, while a couple more limped after in approved splints. I stopped them, of course. The rearmost sufferer—who wore on his shin-bone a wicker trellis of the sort used for covering flower-plots, and a tourniquet, contrived with a pebble and a handkerchief, about his femoral artery— informed me that it was a case of First Aid to the Injured, which he was rendering at some risk to his own (compound) fracture.
"It's wonderful," said George, with a grin, "what crazes the youngsters will pick up."
Thereupon the truth came out. It appeared that during my absence a member of the Ambulance Association of St. John of Jerusalem had descended upon the town with a course of lectures, and the town had taken up the novelty with its usual spirit.
I said a course of lectures; but in Troy we are nothing if not thoroughgoing, and by this time (so George informed me) three courses were in full swing. The railway servants and jetty-men (our instructor's earliest pupils) had arrived at restoring animation to the apparently drowned; while a mixed class, drawn from the townsfolk generally, were learning to bandage, and the members of our Young Women's Christian Association had attended but two lectures and still dallied with the wonders of the human frame.
George told me all about it on our way through the town—for I had consented to be driven on condition that he removed his arm from the sling, and he could not deny this to an old friend (as I make free to call myself). Besides, he was bursting to talk. To be sure, he slipped it back for a few moments as we breasted the hill beyond the post-office and his horses dropped to a walk. I fancy that he glanced at me apologetically; but since there was comparatively little danger hereabouts I thought it more delicate to look the other way.
"And the Chamber of Commerce has not protested?" I asked.
We call it the "Chamber of Commerce" for euphony's sake. It is in fact an association which keeps an eye upon the Parish Council, Harbour Board, and Great Western Railway, and incites these bodies to make our town more attractive to visitors. It consists mainly of lodging-house keepers, and has this summer prevailed on the Railway Company to issue cheap Saturday market tickets to Plymouth—a boon which the visitor will soon learn (if we may take our own experience as a test) to rank high among the minor comforts of life.
No; the Chamber of Commerce had not protested. And yet it occurred to me more than once during the next few days that strangers attracted to Troy by its reputation as a health resort must have marvelled as they walked our streets, where cases of sunstroke, frost-bite, snake-bite, and incipient croup challenged their pity at every corner. The very babies took their first steps in splints, and when they tumbled were examined by their older playmates, and pronounced to be suffering from apoplexy or alcoholic poisoning, as fancy happened to suggest. I believe that a single instruction in the Association's Handbook— carefully italicised there, I must admit—alone saved our rising generation. It ran: "Unless perfectly sure that the patient is intoxicated, do not give the emetic."
To be sure, we left these extravagances to the children. But childhood, after all, is a relative term, and in Troy we pass through it to sober age by nice gradations; which take time. Already a foreign sailor who had committed the double imprudence of drinking heavily at the Crown and Anchor, and falling asleep afterwards on the foreshore while waiting for his boat, was complaining vigorously, through his Vice-Consul, of the varieties of treatment practised upon his insensible body; and only the difficulty of tracing five Esmarch bandages in a town where five hundred had been sold in a fortnight averted a prosecution. I was even prepared for a visit from Sir Felix Felix-Williams, our worthy Squire, who seldom misses an opportunity of turning our local enthusiasms to account, and sometimes does me the honour to enlist my help; but scarcely for the turn his suggestions took.
"You are, of course, interested in this movement?" he began.
"I have to be, seeing that I live in the midst of it."
"You have joined the Ambulance Class, I hear."
"Do you think I would neglect a precaution so obvious? Until their enthusiasm abates, I certainly shall range myself among the First-Aiders rather than the Injured."
"My idea was, to strike while the iron is hot."
"Oh," said I, "a town with so many in the fire—"
"And I thought, perhaps, if we could manage to connect it in some way with the Primrose League—"
"But what can it have to do with the Primrose League?" I asked stiffly. I will admit now to a slight prejudice against the Ambulance business— due perhaps to the lecturer's having chosen to start it in my absence.
Sir Felix was disappointed, and showed it. "Why, it was you," he reminded me, "who helped us last year by setting the widows to race for a leg of mutton."
"I was a symbolist in those days. And, excuse me, Sir Felix, it was not last year, but the year before. Last year we had the surrender of Cronje at Paardeberg, with the widows dressed up as Boer women."
"Is that so? I thought we had Cronje two years ago, but no doubt you are right. Now I thought that, with our Primrose fete coming on, and everybody just now taking such an interest in the Empire—"
"To be sure!" I cried. "'First Aid to the Empire'—it will look well on the bills."
Sir Felix rubbed his hands together—a trick of his when he is pleased.
"It's an idea, eh?"
"A brilliant one."
"Well, but you haven't heard all." He looked at me almost slyly. "It occurred to me, that while—er—associating this enthusiasm of ours with the imperial idea, we might at the same time do a good turn for ourselves. You think that permissible?"
"Permissible? For what else does an empire exist?"
"Quite so. As I was saying to Lady Williams, only this morning, we must bring home to less thoughtful persons a sense of its beneficence. Now it occurs to me: why go on subscribing to these great public Nursing Funds, in which our mite is a mere drop in the ocean, when by sending up a nurse from our own town—she would, of course, be a member of the League—not only should we have the satisfaction of knowing that our help is effective, but the young woman would be earning a salary and supporting herself?"
"Admirable!" said I. "It would look so much better in the papers too."
"You see, we have at this moment a score of young women, all natives of the town and members of the League, undergoing instruction from our lecturer. After the course there will be an examination; and then, with the lecturer's help—and the advice, if I might suggest it, of Lady Williams, who can tell him if the candidate's family be respectable and deserving—we can surely select a young person to do us credit."
Sir Felix took his departure in the cheerfullest temper, and I record his suggestion as one eminently worthy of his head and his heart, although subsequent events have, alas! brought it to nought. I doubt if we shall send up a nurse from Troy; indeed, I doubt if there will even be an examination.
Last evening the Young Women's Christian Association attended its sixth Ambulance lecture. The subject—roller bandaging—being a practical one, a small boy was had in, set on the platform, and bandaged in sight of the audience—plain bandaged, reverse bandaged, figure-of-eight bandaged, bandaged on forefinger, thumb, hand, wrist and forearm, elbow, shoulder, knee, ankle, foot. He declares that he enjoyed himself thoroughly. After each demonstration the young women took a turn and practised with such assiduity that an hour slipped pleasantly away. The bandages were applied, the spirals neatly stitched, and the stitches promptly snipped for the next pupil to begin. An occasional prick with the needle evoked no more than a playful remonstrance from the boy and a ripple of laughter from the fair executants. At length, alas! Miss Sophy Rabling, in snipping her bandage from the boy's foot, fumbled and drove a point of the scissors sharply into his toe.
With a howl he caught at his foot, from which one or two drops of blood were trickling. And the sight of it so affected Miss Sophy that she dropped upon the platform in a swoon. A class-mate in the body of the hall almost instantly followed her example.
The lecturer, I am bound to say, behaved admirably. So far was he from losing his head, that he instantly seized on the accident to turn it to account.
"First aid!" he cried. "Subject: Fainting. Patient No. 1, head to be pressed down below her knees and kept there for a few minutes. Patient No. 2, to be extended on the floor, care being taken to keep head and body level. A form being handy, we could, as an alternative, have hung Patient No. 1 over it, head downwards."
But at this point, unfortunately, the humour of the situation became too much for Miss Gertrude Hansombody, another of the students. She began to titter, went on to laugh uncontrollably, then to clench her hands and sob.
"Subject: Hysterics!" called the lecturer. "Treatment: Be firm with the patient, hold her firmly by the wrists and threaten her with cold water—"
He spoke to empty benches. The rest of his pupils had escaped from the room and were now on their way home, and running for dear life.
I do not expect that St. John of Jerusalem will figure prominently in our Primrose fete. My reason for saying so is an urgent letter just received from Sir Felix, who wishes to confer with me in the course of the day.
COX VERSUS PRETYMAN.
We are not litigious in Troy, and we obey the laws of England cheerfully if we sometimes claim to interpret them in our own way. I leave others to determine whether the Chief Constable's decision, that one policeman amply suffices for us, be an effect or a cause, but certain it is that we rarely trouble any court, and almost never that of Assize.
This accounts in part for the popular interest awakened by the suit of Cox versus Pretyman, heard a few days ago at the Bodmin Assizes. I say "in part," because the case presented (as the newspapers phrase it) some unusual features, and differed noticeably from the ordinary Action for Breach of Promise. "No harm in that," you will say? Indeed no; and we should have regarded it as no more than our due but for an apprehension that the conduct alleged against the defendant concerned us all by compromising the good name of our town.
At any rate, last Wednesday found the streets full of citizens hurrying to the railway station, and throughout the morning our stationmaster had difficulty in handling the traffic. The journey to Bodmin is not a long one as the crow flies, but, as our carpenter, Mr. Hansombody, put it, "we are not crows, and, that being the case, naturally resent being packed sixteen in a compartment." Mr. Hansombody taxed the Great Western Company with lack of foresight in not running excursion trains, and appealed to me to support his complaint. I argued (with the general approval of our fellow-travellers) that there was something heartless in the idea of an excursion to listen to the recital of a woman's wrongs, especially of Miss Cox's, whom we had known so long and esteemed. Driven from this position, Mr. Hansombody took a fresh stand on the superiority of the old broad-gauge carriages; and this, since it raised no personal question, we discussed in very good humour while we unpacked and ate our luncheons.
In the midst of our meal a lady at the far end of the compartment heaved a sigh and ejaculated "Poor thing!"—which at once set us off discussing the case anew. We agreed that such conduct as Pretyman's was fortunately rare amongst us. We tried to disclaim him—no easy matter, since his father and mother had been natives of Troy, and he had spent all his life in our midst. The lady in the corner challenged Mr. Hansombody to deny that our town was deteriorating—the rising generation more mischievous than its parents, and given to mitching from school, and cigarette smoking, if not to worse.
Now this was a really damaging attack, for Mr. Hansombody not only presides over our School Board, but has a son in the tobacco business. He met it magnificently. "He would dismiss (he said) the cigarette question as one upon which—Heaven knew with how little justice!—he might be suspected of private bias; but on the question of truancy he had something to say, and he would say it. To begin with, he would admit that the children in Troy played truant; the percentage of school attendance was abnormally low. Yes, he admitted the fact, and thanked the lady for having called attention to it, since it bore upon the subject now uppermost in our minds. He had here"—and he drew from his pocket a magazine article—"some statistics to which he would invite our attention. They showed the average school attendance in Cornwall to be lower than in any county of England or Wales. But"—and Mr. Hansombody raised his forefinger—"the same statistician in the very same paper proves the average of criminal prosecutions in Cornwall to be the lowest in England and Wales."
"And you infer—" I began as he paused triumphantly.
"I infer nothing, sir. I leave the inference to be drawn by our faddists in education, and I only hope they'll enjoy it."
Well, apart from its bearing on Mr. Hansombody's position as Chairman of our Board (which we forbore to examine), this discovery consoled us somewhat and amused us a great deal until we reached Bodmin, when we hurried at once to the Assize Court.
I have said that the action, Cox v. Pretyman, was for damages for Breach of Promise of Marriage. Both parties are natives and parishioners of Fowey, and attend the same place of worship. The plaintiff, Miss Rebecca Cox, earns her living as a dressmaker's assistant; the defendant is our watch-maker, and opened a shop of his own but a few months before approaching Miss Cox with proposals of marriage. This was fifteen years ago. I may mention that some kind of counter-claim was put in "for goods delivered"; the goods in question being a musical-box and sundry small articles for parlour amusement, such as a solitaire-tray, two packs of "Patience" cards, a race-game, and the like. But the defendant did not allege that these had been sent or accepted as whole or partial quittance of his contract to marry, and I can only suppose that he pleaded them in mitigation of damages. Miss Cox asked for one hundred and fifty pounds.
Her evidence was given in quiet but resolute tones, and for some time disclosed nothing sensational. The circumstances in which Mr. Pretyman had sued for and obtained the promise of her hand differed in no important particular from those which ordinarily attend the fiancailles of respectable young persons in Troy; and for twelve years his courtship ran an even course. "After this," asserted Miss Cox, "his attentions cooled. He was friendly and kind enough when we met, and still talked of enlarging his shop-front and marrying in the near future. But his visits were not frequent enough to be called courting." Of late, though living in the same street, she had only seen him on Sundays; and even so he would be occupied almost all the day and evening with services, Sunday school, prayer-meetings, and occasional addresses. At length she taxed him with indifference, and, finding his excuses unsatisfactory, was persuaded by her friends to bring the present action. She liked the man well enough; but for the last two or three years "his heart hadn't been in it. He didn't do any proper courting."