Home > Authors Index > Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch > Mayor of Troy > This page
The Mayor of Troy, a novel by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
||
Chapter 8. "Come, My Corinna, Come!" |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER VIII. "COME, MY CORINNA, COME!"
She gazed out upon the street, dark now and deserted. No light signalled to her from the attic window behind which Dr. Hansombody so often sat late over his books and butterfly cases. He had gone with the others. She listened. The house was silent save for the muffled snoring of Scipio in his cupboard-bedroom under the stairs. She raised the window-sash gently, leaned out upon the soft spring night, and listened again. Far down the street, from the purlieus of the Town Quay, her ear caught a murmur of voices--of voices and happy subdued laughter. The maidens of Troy were embarking; and to-morrow would be May morning. Miss Marty sighed. How long was it since she had observed May morning and its rites? The morrow, too, if the Vicar and the Major were right in their calculations, would usher in the Millennium. But again, what was the Millennium to her? Could it bring back her youth? She heard the boats draw near and go by. The houses to the left hid them from her: but she leaned out, hearkening to the soft plash of oars, the creak of thole-pins, the girls' voices in hushed chorus practising the simple native harmonies they would lift aloud as they returned after sunrise. She recognised the tune, too; the old tune of "The Padstow Hobby-horse,"-- "Rise up, Master--, and joy you betide,
"O where be the maidens that here now should sing?
"Wh'st! Miss Mar-ty!" Heavens! Whose voice was that, calling up hoarsely from the shadows? She peered out, but could see nobody. Suddenly her maiden modesty took alarm. What possessed her to be standing here exposed, and exposing the interior of her lighted bed-chamber to view from the street? She ran back in a flurry and blew out the candles; then, returning, put up a hand to draw down the window-sash. "Wh'st! Miss Mar-ty!" "Gracious goodness!" After a moment's hesitation she craned out timorously. "Cai Tamblyn . . .?" "Miss Marty!" "What on earth are you doing there at this time of night?" "Sentry-go." "Nonsense. What do I want of a sentry?" "You never can tell." "Are you here by the Major's order?" "Ch't!" answered Cai Tamblyn. "_Him!_" "Then go away, please, and let me beg you to speak more respectfully of your master." "I reckon," said Cai, slowly, "you don't know that, barrin' the nigger under the stairs, this here town's as empty as my hat. Well, a man can but die once, and if the French come, let 'em; that's all I say. Good night, miss." "The town empty?" "Males, females and otherwise, down to Miss Jex at the post-office." (Cai Tamblyn nursed an inveterate antipathy for the post-mistress. He alleged no reason for it, save that she wore moustaches, which was no reason at all, and a monstrous exaggeration.) "There's Miss Pescod gone, and Miss Tregentil with her maid." "But where? Why?" "Up the river. Gallivantin'. That's what I spoke ye for, just now. Mind you, I don't propose no gallivantin'; but there's safety in numbers, and if you've a mind for it, I've the boat ready by the Broad Slip." "But what foolishness!" "Ay," Mr. Tamblyn assented. "That's what I said to the Doctor when he first mentioned it. 'What foolishness,' I said, 'at _her_ time o' life!' But then we never reckoned on the whole town goin' crazed." "The Doctor?" queried Miss Marty, with a glance down the dark street. "He thinks of everything," she murmured. There was a pause, during which Mr. Tamblyn somewhat ostentatiously tested the lock of his musket. "You are not going to frighten me, Cai." "No, miss." "I--I think an expedition up the river would be very pleasant. If, as you say, Miss Pescod has gone--" "Yes, miss." "I must bring Scipio." "Very well, miss. If the French come, they _might_ think o' looking under the stairs."
The Broad Slip--it has since been filled in--was in those days a sort of dock, inset between the waterside houses and running up so close to the street that the vessels it berthed were forced to take in their bowsprits to allow the pack-horse traffic to pass. On its south side a flight of granite steps led down to the water: and at the foot of these (the tide being low) Cai Tamblyn waited with his boat. "I declare my heart's in my mouth," Miss Marty panted, as she took her seat. Cai directed Scipio to sit amidships, pushed off in silence, and taking the forward thwart, began to pull. "Now there's a thing," he said after a few strokes with a jerk of his head towards the dark longshore houses, "you don't often see nor hear about outside o' the Bible; a deserted city. Fine pickings for Boney if he only knew." Miss Marty's thoughts flew back at once to a corner cupboard in the parlour, inlaid with tulips in Dutch marqueterie, and containing the Major's priceless eggshell china. To be sure, if the French landed, she--weak woman that she was--could not defend this treasure. But might not the Major blame her for having abandoned it? "I--I trust," she hazarded, "that our brave fellows have succeeded in their enterprise. It seemed to me that I heard the sound of distant firing just now." "If they hadn't, miss, they'd ha' been back afore now. I had my own doubts about 'em, for they're a hair-triggered lot, the Troy Gallants. No fear of their goin' off; but 'tis a matter o' doubt in what direction." "Your master," said Miss Marty, severely, addressing Cai across Scipio (who for some reason seldom or never spoke in Cai's company)-- "your master has the heart of a lion. He would die rather than acknowledge defeat." "A heart of a lion, miss, if you'll excuse my saying it, is an uncomfortable thing in a man's stomach; an' more especially when 'tis fed up on the wind o' vanity. I've a-read my Bible plumb down to the forbidden books thereof, and there's a story in it called Bel and the Dragon, which I mind keeping to the last, thinkin' 'twas the name of a public-house. 'Tis a terrible warnin' against swollen vittles." "You are a dreadful cynic, Cai." "Nothin' of the sort, miss," said Cai, stoutly. "I thinks badly o' most men--that's all." His talk was always cross-grained, but its volume betrayed a quite unwonted geniality to-night. And half a mile farther, where the dark river bent around Wiseman's Stone, he so far relaxed as to rest on his oars and challenge the famous echo from the wooded cliffs. Somewhat to Miss Marty's astonishment it responded. "And by night, too! I had no idea!" "Night?" repeated Mr. Tamblyn, after rowing on for another fifty strokes. He paused as if he had that moment heard, and glanced upward. "'Tis much as ever. The sky's palin' already, and we'll not reach Lerryn by sunrise. I think, miss, if you'll step ashore, this here's as good a place as any. Scipio and me'll keep the boat and turn our backs." Miss Marty understood. The boat's nose having been brought alongside a ridge of rock, she landed in silence, climbed the foreshore, up by a hazel-choked path to a meadow above, and there, solemnly thrusting her hands into the lush grass, turned to the east and bathed her face in the dew. It is a rite which must be performed alone, in silence; and the morning sun must not surprise it. "You've been terrible quick," remarked Cai, as she stepped down to the foreshore again in the ghostly light. "You can't have stayed to dabble your feet. Didn't think it wise, I s'pose? And I dare say you're right." From far ahead of them as they started again, the voices of the singers came borne down the river; and again Miss Marty's memory supplied the words of the song:
Miss Marty gazed up at the last star fading in the blue. How clear the morning was! How freshly scented beneath the shadow of the woods! Her gaze descended upon the incongruous top-hat and gold-laced livery of Scipio, touched with the morning sunshine. She glanced around her and motioned to Cai Tamblyn to bring the boat to shore by a grassy spit whence (as she knew) a cart-track led alongshore through the young oak coppices to the village. "And Scipio," she said, turning as she stepped out on the turf, "will like a run in the woods." She had walked on, maybe a hundred paces, before the absurdity of it struck her. She had been thinking of Mr. Pope's line:
She was smiling yet when, at a turning of the leafy lane, she came upon the prettiest innocent sight. On a cushion of moss beside the path, two small children--a boy and a girl--lay fast asleep. The boy's arm was flung around his sister's shoulders, and across his thighs rested a wand or thin pole topped with a May-garland of wild hyacinths, red-robin and painted birds' eggs. A tin cup, brought to collect pence for the garland, glittered in the cart-rut at their feet. It had rolled down the mossy bank as the girl's fingers relaxed in sleep. They were two little ones of Troy, strayed hither from the merrymaking; and at first Miss Marty had a mind to wake them, seeing how near they lay to the river's brink. But noting that a fallen log safeguarded them from this peril, she fumbled for the pocket beneath her skirt, dropped a sixpence with as little noise as might be into the tin cup, and tiptoed upon her way. About three hundred yards from the village she met another pair of children; and, soon after, a score or so in a cluster, who took toll of her in pence; for almost everyone carried a garland. And then the trees opened, and she saw before her the village with its cottages, grey and whitewashed, its gardens and orchards, mirrored in the brimming tide, all trembling in the morning light and yet exquisitely still. Far up the river, beyond the village and the bridge, a level green meadow ran out, narrowing the channel; and here beneath the apple-trees--for the meadow was half an orchard--had been set out many lines of white-covered tables, at which the Mayers made innocently merry. Innocently, did I say? Well, I have known up-country folk before now to be scandalised by some things which we in the Duchy think innocent enough. So let me admit that the three long-boats conveyed something more than the youth and beauty of Troy to that morning's Maying; that when launched from Mr. Runnells' yard they were not entirely what they seemed: that from their trial spin across the bay they returned some inches deeper in the water, and yet they did not leak. Had you perchance been standing by the shore in the half-light as they came up over the shallows, you might have wondered at the number of times they took ground, and at the slowness of the tide to lift and float them. You might have wondered again why, after they emerged from the deep shadow of Sir Felix Felix-Williams' woods upon the southern shore, albeit in shallow water, they seemed to feel their hindrances no longer. Have you ever, my reader, caught hold of a lizard and been left with his tail in your hands? Even so easily did these three long-boats shed their false keels, which half an hour later were but harmless-looking stacks of timber among Sir Felix's undergrowth. Half an hour later, had your unwary feet led you to a certain corner of Sir Felix's well-timbered demesne, you might have scratched your head and wondered what magic carpet had transported you into the heart of the Cognac District. And all this was the work of the men of Troy (not being volunteers) who had come either in the long-boats or in the many boats escorting these. But the women of Troy, being deft with the oar one and all, took the places of the men left behind in the woods, and, singing yet, brought both the long-boats and these other boats safely to Lerryn on the full flood of the tide, and disembarking upon the meadow there, gathered around the tables under the apple-trees to eat bread and cream in honour of May-day, looking all the while as if butter would not melt in their mouths. Between their feasting they laughed a great deal; but either they laughed demurely, being constrained by the unwonted presence of Miss Pescod and other ladies of Troy's acknowledged _elite_, or Miss Marty as yet stood too far off to hear their voices.
Fidelity was ever the first spring of Scipio's conduct. He adored the Major with a canine devotion, and by an instinct almost canine he found his way up to the earthwork and chose a position which commanded the farthest prospect in the direction of Looe. From where he sat the broad hedge dipped to a narrow valley, climbed the steep slope opposite, and vanished, to reappear upon a second and farther ridge two miles away. As yet he could discern no sign of the returning heroes; but his ear caught the throb of a drum beaten afar to the eastward. Of the Major's two body-servants it might be said that the one spoke seldom and the other never; and again that Cai, who spoke seldom, was taciturn, while Scipio, who spoke never, was almost affable. In truth, the negro's was the habitual silence of one who, loving his fellows, spends all his unoccupied time in an inward brooding, a continual haze of day-dreams. Scipio's day-dreams were of a piece with his loyalty, a reflection in some sort of his master's glory. He could never--he with his black skin--be such a man; but he passionately desired to be honoured, respected, though but posthumously. And the emblazoned board in the church, appealing as it did to his negro sense of colour, had suggested a way. It is not too much to say that a great part of Scipio's time was lived by him in a future when, released from this present livery, his spirit should take on a more gorgeous one, as "Scipio Johnson, Esquire, late of this Parish," in scarlet twiddles on a buff ground. He seated himself on the earthwork, and the better to commune with this vision, tilted his gold-laced hat forward over his eyes, shutting out the dazzle of the morning sun. Once or twice he shook himself, being heavy with broken sleep, and gazed across the ridges, then drew up his knees, clasped them, and let his heavy, woolly head drop forward, nodding.
And, to pass over the minor incidents of that march, I will maintain in fairness (though the men of Troy choose to laugh) that the sudden apparition of a black man seated in the morning light upon the Devil's Hedge was enough to daunt even the tried valour of the Looe Diehards.
For the second time that night the Gallants rolled about and clung one to another in throes of Homeric laughter; laughter which, reverberating, shout on shout, along the ridge and down among the tree-tops, reached even to the meadow far below, where in the sudden hush of the lark's singing the merrymakers paused and looked up to listen. But wait awhile! They laugh best who laugh last. _ |
||