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Major Vigoureux, a novel by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
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Chapter 23. The Lord Proprietor Hears A Siren Sing |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. THE LORD PROPRIETOR HEARS A SIREN SING
Your obedient servant, J. FLEETWOOD CUNNINGHAM.
The passage had been smooth to-day, and the bag had been delivered to him and opened as he took his solitary meal. Also the mail for the great house was a light one, and out of it the Lord Proprietor, catching sight of the official stamp on the envelope, had at once selected the letter quoted above. He perused it, and re-perused it, to the neglect of the rest of his correspondence, tilting it against a bowl of Michaelmas daisies in front of his plate. It was satisfactory, he decided--that is to say, on the whole, and so far as it went. He foresaw that short shrift would be given to those idlers on Garrison Hill. On the other hand, he frowned at the prospect--call it the chance, rather--of seeing that establishment replaced by one more efficient. To be sure, if the necessities of Coast Defence demanded it.... Still, for his part, he would have preferred to be let alone. The Islands, with their many outlying reefs and poor anchorage could never afford room to such battleships as were built in these days; and to erect new fortifications to cover a roadstead that would seldom if ever be used appeared the plainest waste of public money.... He really thought that the War Office might have consulted him before coolly proposing to plant a new garrison above St. Lide's. He was not even sure they had a right, without his consent.... He would confer with Mr. Pope on this point. At the very least, it would have been courteous to start by asking his opinion; for, after all, he owned the Islands. He was responsible, too, for the general good conduct of the population; good conduct which the advent of a body of soldiery would certainly affect--nay, might entirely upset. Nevertheless, he reflected that--however the Commissioners might decide (and he would take care to press his opinion energetically)--his letter to the Secretary of State for War had at least done no harm. The Commissioner's visit had obviously been projected before the receipt of it, and at the worst it would enable him to call quits with Vigoureux. He reflected further that these roving Commissions to report were often no index of Government policy, but were simply appointed to shelve, while professing to consider a question which the Government found awkward. So, luncheon over, he sat down and wrote a letter thanking the Secretary for his communication, and very politely offering to do all in his power to make the Commissioners' visit "to these out-of-the-world Islands" a pleasant one. Having copied the letter and read it over with no little approval, the Lord Proprietor dealt briefly with the rest of his correspondence; consulted his pocket-diary, looked at his watch, and, finding that he had an hour to spare before granting an interview to Eli Tregarthen, stepped out upon the terrace, where Abe Jenkins was cutting back the geraniums that had well-nigh ceased to flower. "But is it necessary?" asked the Lord Proprietor. "Here, in the very mouth of the Gulf Stream ... and last winter we escaped with nothing worse than two degrees of frost." "Last winter and this winter be two different things, sir," protested Abe, gently but firmly. "Last winter, sir--as you may have taken notice--we had next to no berries 'pon the holly; and no seals, nor yet no mermaids." "Seals? Mermaids?" Sir Caesar echoed. "Which I've always heard it said, sir," Old Abe went on, with the air of one carefully, even elaborately, deferring to superior ignorance, "as how than seals you can have no surer sign of hard weather. Of mermaids I says nothing, except that with such-like creatures about you may count 'pon something out of the common." "Since," said the Lord Proprietor, "there are no such things as mermaids, we will confine ourselves to seals.... I had no idea that seals--er--frequented our shores." "No more they don't, unless summat extr'ord'ny has taken the weather. But I've heard tell of a season when, for weeks together, you could count up two or three score together baskin' on the beaches to the north of the Island here. Sam Leggo can tell you all about it"--Abe jerked a thumb in the direction of North Inniscaw Farm. "He and his father used to hunt them, one time, along with Phil Cara of St. Hugh's. You know where the old adit goes into the cliff under Carn Coppa? Well, they tell me that if you follow the adit for fifty yards you come to a kind of pit that breaks straight down and through the roof of a cave--Ogo Vean, they call it--to the west of Piper's Hole, and this cave fairly swarmed with seals. The three men would lower themselves by rope-ladders--I reckon old Leggo had learnt the trick of it in by-gone days when the Free-traders used the adit--and get down upon a strip of firm shingle at the inner end of the cave; and there Sam Leggo would hold the lantern while his father and Phil Cara blazed away. They never shot more than a brace at a time, because of the difficulty of getting the bodies up the ladder, for they had to be gone before high-water, and likewise there was always a danger that the seals might charge 'em in a herd, bein' angered by the loss of their mates. In this way they pretty well cleared out the cave--all but one great beauty that old Leggo had sworn to take alive. For, instead of bein' yellow or motley-brown like the rest, this fellow was white as milk all over, besides bein' powerful as any other two. He seemed to know from the first that the three men didn't mean to shoot him. The lanterns and the firing never hurried him a bit, and he never threw himself into a rage over the loss of his relations. He just kept out of reach, looking like as if he despised the whole business, and refused to quit. He was cautious, too; wouldn't trust the cave in weather when a boat could follow him and block up the entrance. On fine nights he had a favourite rock just outside Ogo Vean--you can see it from the top of the cliff--and there he'd lie asleep and dare 'em; out of reach, but plain enough to see, even in the dark, because of his white skin. "Now, as you may have taken notice, sir, the tide runs out dry to this rock on the inshore side; but seaward it goes down, even at low springs, into more'n three fathoms of water, and my gentleman always took his forty winks on the seaward slope. Half-a-dozen times did Phil Cara, thinkin' to catch him----" "I beg your pardon," interrupted Sir Caesar, "'Cara,' did you say?" "Yes, sir; Philip Cara, father to Eli Tregarthen's wife over to Saaron; and likewise, o' course, to Eli Tregarthen's wife's sister, that is lodging at Saaron Farm, having come home from service a while back." "Eh? From service?" the Lord Proprietor echoed, with quickened interest. "What sort of service?" "Why, as to that, sir, I can't say that I can tell you for certain; but it's somewheres on the mainland, and the young woman seems a very respectable young woman. But whether she means to bide wi' the family or has come to lodge while lookin' out for another place, I can't certainly say--the Tregarthens bein' a close-tongued lot, as you know." "A lady's-maid?" hazarded the Lord Proprietor. "May be. Well, as I was tellin' you, half-a-dozen times did Phil Cara, bidin' his time till the tide was low and the sand hard----" "But it's impossible," said the Lord Proprietor, pursuing his own train of thought. Abe regarded his master rather in sorrow than in anger. "To be sure, sir," said he, in a tone of delicate rebuke, "if you don't want to hear my story----" "Eh? Yes, certainly, my wits were wool-gathering, Abe, and I beg your pardon. Let me see.... You were saying that Cara used to wait till the tide was low----" "Yes, sir. He'd creep along the sand, he and the two Leggos, and th' old seal would lie there sleepin', innocent as a child, and let them come close under the rock, and even climb it. But soon as ever they made a pounce--c'lk!--he rolled off the slope and into deep water. Regular as clockwork it happened; quiet and easy as a door on a greased hinge; and every time it made the three look foolisher and foolisher. "After half-a-dozen tries, Cara allowed that he couldn' go on bein' mocked by a dumb animal; so he set his brain to work, and thought out a new plan. The two Leggos were to take a boat and drop down wi' the tide close in the shadow of the rock 'pon the seaward side, while Cara himself crept, as usual, hands-an'-knees, across the beach. So they planned, an' so they did; and sure enough when Cara made a pounce for the seal, my gentleman rolled down the ledge and slap into the boat! 'Now you've got 'en!' yells Cara. 'Darn it all!' yells back old Leggo from the scuffle, 'Seems more like he's got WE!' For that seal, sir, fought like ten tom-cats; and before the Leggos got in a lucky stroke and knocked him silly with a stretcher he'd ripped one leg off th' old man's trousers and bitten the heel clean off Sam's right boot. They took him home and skinned him, and sold the skin that same year to a Dutch skipper for thirty shillin'. But Sam has told me more than twice that he don't mean to tempt Providence again by catchin' any more seals." The Lord Proprietor looked at his watch. "I must get Leggo to show me that adit this very afternoon. I've an appointment at three-thirty to meet him and Tregarthen at the farm." "Indeed, sir? Then you've brought Eli Tregarthen to his senses?--if I may make so bold." The Lord Proprietor flushed, remembering that Abe had witnessed the interview in the walled garden. "I fancy the man has begun to see the red light," he answered, carelessly. "At any rate, he has consented to meet me and take a look over North Inniscaw." "Well," said Abe, "you'll find him a good farmer; none better." "And he'll find me a landlord, willing to let bygones be bygones. By the way," added Sir Caesar, yet more carelessly, "I am curious to know if I met that sister-in-law of his the other day?--a decidedly handsome woman, and strikingly well dressed. In fact, I should say she bought her clothes in Paris." Abe stared, as though his master had suddenly taken leave of his senses. "I never been to Paris," he said, slowly. "When I seen her last she was nettin' sand-eels, with her legs bare to the knee." * * * * * Sir Caesar walked indoors to fetch his hat and his gun. Though he rarely used it, he invariably carried a gun under his arm in his walks about the Islands. It helped his sense of being monarch of all he surveyed. That sense was strong in him as he took the path which led across the middle of the Island to North Inniscaw Farm. St. Lide's lay directly behind him, to the south, and thus no Garrison Hill obtruded upon his view to remind him of annoyances. The sea shone, the air was pure, the whole seascape flashed white upon blue--white gulls wheeling aloft, white breasts of puffins congregated on the smaller islets, white caps of tiny waves where the breeze met the tide-race, on North Island the white shaft of a lighthouse fronting the almost level sun. With a touch of imagination the scene had become a prospect of the Cyclades, the lighthouse a column to Aphrodite or the twin brothers of Helen. But the Lord Proprietor was a Briton. He halted on the hill-side to inhale the vigorous breeze, and his heart rejoiced that all he saw belonged to him. The path descended a stony hillside, crossed a marshy green hollow, and mounted a second stony hill. Over the summit of it the low roofs of a line of farm-buildings hove into sight. This was North Inniscaw; and the Lord Proprietor, arriving punctually at three-thirty, found Eli Tregarthen at the gate in converse with Sam Leggo, the hind in temporary charge of the farm. If Eli had begun to see reason, his face held out no promise of it. It was dark and gloomy; a trifle weary, too, as though he kept this appointment rather through politeness than with any care for its outcome. He saluted the Lord Proprietor respectfully, but at once bent his eyes to the ground. "Good afternoon! Good afternoon, Tregarthen!" Sir Caesar began, in his heartiest voice, to show that he bore no malice. "I like punctuality, and those who practise it. Punctuality, if I may say so, is not a wide-spread virtue in these Islands. Shall we go round and take stock?" "If it will give you satisfaction, sir," assented Eli. Sir Caesar led the way, pausing at every gate to discuss the soil, the crop, the present price of oats, barley, roots of beef and mutton; drainage and top-dressing; aspect and shelter; a hundred odds and ends. He talked uncommonly good sense, too, as Eli confessed to himself. The Lord Proprietor had taken up with agriculture late in life, but he brought to it a trained and thoroughly practical mind. Once or twice he submitted a point to Sam Leggo, who had worked all his life on this very farm, and Eli was forced to admire the pertinence of his questions and cross-questions. He talked with great good humour, too, although Eli gave it small encouragement. The shadow of leaving Saaron had hung over Eli's mind for more than two months; heavy, oppressive, but until this morning intangible as a cloud. Vashti had remarked that the days deadened him while they should have been nerving him to action; and Vashti, this very morning, had forced his eyes open by asking, in a business-like way, if he had ever thought of emigrating to the mainland. Were it not wiser, since the wrench must come, to make it complete?--to go where regret would not be kept aching by the daily sight of Saaron? The children would find better schools on the mainland, and it was high time to be thinking of Matthew Henry, who deserved a better education than the Islands could afford. In arguing thus, Vashti was not entirely serious. She knew that Eli would never cut himself loose from the Islands; but she hoped, by forcing him to face the alternative, to shake him out of his torpor. In this she had partly succeeded. For the first time the man opened his eyes and saw hard facts--facts that in a few weeks' time he must grapple with, since neither grieving nor grumbling would remove them. But for the moment the discovery, instead of nerving him, inflamed his wrath. A strong man, finding himself helpless, suffers horribly. Especially he suffers when, with a dim sense that in the last resort all power depends on strength, he finds himself tripped up and laid on his back by a man physically his inferior. Had the Lord Proprietor inherited the Islands from a line of ancestors--had his tyranny rested on any feudal tradition--Eli was Briton enough to have acquiesced or submitted. But this whipper-snapper had bought the Islands: money--dirty money alone--gave him power over men who were Islanders by birth and by long generations of breeding. While the Lord Proprietor talked, Eli felt an impulse almost uncontrollable to lay hands on him and wring his neck. The three men had reached Coppa Parc, an enclosure of twelve acres bounded along the north by the cliffs' edge, and deriving its name from a mass of granite rock--Carn Coppa--that, rising in ledges from near the middle of the field, ran northward until it broke away precipitously, overhanging the sea. The slopes around the base of the Carn showed here and there an outcrop of granite, but with pockets of deep soil in which (or so the Lord Proprietor maintained) barley could be grown at a profit. He appealed to Eli. "Come, what does Mr. Tregarthen say to it? A piece of ground like this--hey?--oughtn't to beat a man that has grown barley on Saaron?" He said it intending no offence, but in a bluff, hearty way, which he meant to be genial. After a second or two, Eli not answering, he turned and saw to his amazement that the man was trembling from head to foot with wrath. "What right have you? What right----" Eli stammered fiercely, and came to a full stop, clenching his fists. The Lord Proprietor stared at him. "My good fellow, I hadn't the smallest wish to hurt your feelings. What ails you? An innocent remark, surely!" "What ails me?" echoed Eli, and stopped again, panting. "Man, have done with this, and let me go--else I'll not promise to keep my hands off you!" For a moment he stood threatening, his eyes--like the eyes of a dumb animal at bay--travelling from the Lord Proprietor to Sam Leggo. The blood ebbed from his face, and left it unnaturally white. But of a sudden he appeared to collect himself; thrust both hands in his pockets, and, turning his back, walked away resolutely down the slope. "Well!" said Sam Leggo, after a pause. "Well!" "The man has never been thwarted before," said the Lord Proprietor, as they gazed after him together. "That's what comes of living alone in a place like Saaron; and I'll take care his children don't learn the same folly. Feels the curb, as you might say. Have you ever seen a horse broken late in life?" "You take it very quiet, sir, I must say," protested Sam, admiringly. "So disrespectful as he was, too--and to the likes of you! Well! I've known Eli Tregarthen forty year, and if any man had come and told me----" "The worst is, we have wasted an afternoon," said Sir Caesar, easily. "But since we are here, with half-an-hour to spare before sunset, what do you say to showing me the adit?" "The adit, sir?" "There's an old adit hereabouts--eh?--that leads down to a cave.... Come, come, my good man, you don't deceive me by putting on that stupid face! We don't allow smuggling on the Islands in these days, and I like to know the secrets of my own property. The cave is called Ogo Vean, or something like it; and if I must explain more precisely, it is where you and your father used to go hunting seals." "Yes, yes, to be sure," Sam admitted; "an adit there is, or used to be. But," he went on more cheerfully, "you'll find it nothing to look at. I han't set foot inside it for years, and I doubt but the entrance is choked." "Take me to it," said Sir Caesar. Sam, without further remonstrance, led the way. They scrambled out to the edge of the Carn, and there, where the last great boulder thrust itself forward over the sea, Sam scrambled off to the left, and lowered himself down upon a turfy ledge. Warning his master to leave his gun behind and beware of the slippery grass, he sidled out alongside the jutting slab, and suddenly ducked under it. The Lord Proprietor, following, crawled under the stone, and found himself staring into the mouth of the adit--a dark hole less than four feet in height, and overgrown with ivy. Sam had spoken the truth. The passage, whithersoever it led, had been disused for years. "Cur'ous old place!" said Sam, reflectively, plucking at the ivy. "I've a mind to try the inside of it again, one of these days." "I've a mind to explore it now," said the Lord Proprietor. Sam stared at him. "You couldn't, sir; not without a lantern. You'd be breakin' your neck, to a certainty." "Then fetch a lantern. Look sharp, man! Run back to the farm and fetch a lantern. I'll wait for you--no, not here: a few minutes on this ledge would turn my head giddy--but on the Carn above." Without further words, he worked his body around carefully, and led the way back to the summit. "You'd best hurry," he advised Sam, who showed no eagerness for the job. "In another twenty minutes the dusk will be closing down fast." Sam slouched off at a fair pace across the field. Sir Caesar watched his retreating figure until it reached the gate, and then, picking up his gun, disposed himself to wait. Seals? They ought to give good sport--better sport, he should imagine, than deerstalking. A pity, too, to let it die out ... if seals still frequented the Islands.... He must consult Sam about it, and pick up a few wrinkles. He peered over the edge of the Carn, scanning the water, a hundred feet below him, for the rock which Abe had described. He could see no such rock. Maybe, though, it would be covered by the tide, now close upon high-water. Then he bethought him that the rock must lie a little to the west, towards Piper's Hole--that is to say, in the next small indentation of the shore. He strolled in that direction, following the cliff's edge, still with eyes upon the sea. Of a sudden he stopped and straightened himself up with a gasp. What sound was that?... Surely a voice--a woman's voice--singing up to him from the depth! Was he awake or dreaming?... Beyond all doubt someone was singing, down there: a mournful, wordless song. He was no judge of music, but it seemed to him that, let alone the mystery of the singer, he had never heard a voice so wonderful. It rose and fell with the surge of the tide. The Lord Proprietor laid down his gun. He had come to a shelving slope that descended like a funnel or the half of a broken crater, narrowing to a dark pit, in which the sea heaved gently, but with a sound as of a monster sobbing; but still above this sound rose the voice of the singer. He flung himself on the verge beside his gun and craned forward.... Yes, there was the rock; yes, and there on the rock sat a figure--a woman--and combed her long hair while she sang. _ |
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