Читать книгу The West Wind - Crosbie Garstin - Страница 12

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It was ‘feasten’ eve in Monk’s Cove.

St. Peter is the patron of fishermen, St. Piran of the Cornish miners—a full-blooded ecclesiastic who, report has it, died drunk. On March 25th the tinners went on riotous holiday, and on St. Peter’s eve tar barrels were lit on the towers of sea-board churches in honour of the fisher saint.

Monk’s Cove kept ‘feasten’ with spirit and thoroughness. The housewives entertained friends to tea (that, incidentally, had paid no duty), ‘heavy’ and saffron cake, while the men held quoit and ninepin matches on the bare patch outside the ‘Admiral Anson.’ In the evening young couples danced by the light of the stars to the strains of an itinerant fiddler.

But feasten eve was bonfire night. High on Gwithian church tower the tributary tar-barrel blazed and was seen by sailors pacing through their lonely night watches far at sea.

In Monk’s Cove quantities of drift-wood and the remains of an old boat had been stacked up and set alight, and around this the boys and young men danced and shouted. They held hands, forming a large circle, and as they danced around and around, one side tried to drag the other into the roaring red pile. It was a delirious spectacle. The fire-lit ring staggering perilously this way and that, to the brink of the flames, then out again, twirling dizzily. The houses and cliffs glowing ruddy as the fire leapt upwards, ravening the old timbers. Mothers shrieked unheeded warnings to their sons, girls squealed excitedly, small boys cheered, children, long since tucked in bed, flattened their snub noses against window-panes and crowed with rapture. Suddenly a young fellow broke from the circle and with a wild yell leapt at the fire. High into the air he sprang, but the flames leapt higher. For a second he seemed impaled on great orange spear-heads of flame, enveloped by a fountain of blazing sparks. Women shrieked, men whooped, but the boy fell clear and rolled over and over on the far side, brushing the cinders out of his carroty mop.

Others followed on with much noise and parade of daring, but the heart was out of the fire and the redhead’s jump was not equalled that night. In the meanwhile the elder men were making merry in an upper room of the ‘Admiral Anson.’ Every year when feasten approached the landlord, Jacky’s George Baragwanath, sent his three unmarried sons to sleep in the sail-loft and turned their bedroom into a dance-hall, having first taken the precaution of shoring up the beams from below. He sat on the presidential bench at the end of the room, supported by Uncle Jesse Kneebone and Uncle Billy Kitto, octogenarians all. A little, perky, round-bellied robin of a man was Jacky’s George, not five feet three inches in height and of benevolent countenance. Nevertheless he had sailed the world with the admiral to whom his inn was dedicated, sacked cities and plate ships and, later, been master gunner of a privateer. He ran a bright, bird-like eye round the room. The company was dull, sitting upright on the benches, drinking little and saying less. He battered his pewter mug with the steel hook that served him as a left hand. Obediently two sons came forward, Benbow, an ex-naval gunner, and Boscawen (all the seven Baragwanath sons were named after British admirals), alert, raw-boned, foxy young men who had sailed ‘foreign’ and seen life.

“Give ’em ale and keep ’em flushed,” their parent commanded, adding sotto voce, “ ’Tis paid for.”

Ale was distributed from big earthenware jugs. The company dipped their noses as one, drank deep and came up to breathe, gasping, after the manner of sea-lions returning to surface after long immersion. Again Jacky’s George sounded his pewter. “Crowder,^[2] step forth and favour we with a tune. Come forth, my old worm, and touch the strings.”

[2]	Old Cornish for ‘fiddler.’

The fiddler—a tall, emaciated creature in tight breeches out at the knees and a long black coat much frayed at the skirts—bounded from his seat and took the centre of the floor, smirking, bowing, jerking like a thing on wires.

“A tune, eh? At your command, my lords and gentlemen. What’ll ’e have? Speak the word. Doleful or gladsome? Eddn no tune made that I can’t play.”

“Let’s have ‘Will ye to Cawsand Bay?’ then,” said a man who had once visited that place in a smuggling craft.

“ ‘Cawsand Bay,’ ” said the fiddler, showing all his yellow teeth in an uncomfortable grin. “Ah, yes! Lemme see, how does it go? Ah, yes.” He gave a preliminary scrape of his strings.

“That don’t sound like any ‘Cawsand Bay’ I ever heard,” the proposer objected.

“ ‘Cawsand Bay’ ’tis for all that,” said the fiddler. “I’d know all the songs in the world.”

The man was firm. “I do only know one and that ain’t it—so now.”

The fiddler weakened. “Well, I did know it once. I know ’em all. But seem me I may have forgot it. Teddn once in twenty years I’d get a call for a trashy old-fangled song like that. Any other——”

Boscawen spoke. “Try ‘Bold Brittany’ then—that’s new enough.”

The fiddler gave a diabolical smirk. “ ‘Bold Brittany,’ saith ’a yes,—ye-es, a-humph!” Again he drew his bow across the strings, then halted and fixed a painful eye on Boscawen. “Lookee, Brittany’s a parish o’ France, I believe. Well, playing Frinch songs in war-time do savour powerful o’ treason, seem me. I eddn but a poor wandering poet, but I’m a loyal subject by damn! Seem me——”

“Seem me you don’t know that song either,” said Jacky’s George, testily. “For God’s sake let the poor fool choose for hisself, something he do know!”

The fiddler bowed and broke forthwith into ‘The Barley Mow’:

“Here’s a health to the baarley mow, my braave boys,

Here’s a health to the baarley mow.

We’ll drenk et out of the jolly brown bowl,

Here’s a health to the baarley mow.”

“That’s better,” said Jacky’s George. “Give tongue, my beauties. Bosy, keep the ale flowing. Now chorus, all of ’e!

‘We’ll drenk it out of the nepperkin, boys;

Here’s a health to the baarley mow,

The nepperkin and the jolly brown bowl!’ ”

Uncle Jesse Kneebone wiped his shrunken lips with a hand rendered shapeless by half a century of toil. “Fiddles well enough, the long man, but not so pretty as our old ‘Jiggy’ Dan to my ear.”

Uncle Billy Kitto agreed. “ ’Ess, sure enough. He were a rare brisk crowder, Dan’l—drunk or sober.”

“Died up under the quoit stones on Trewa Hill, I’ve heard tell,” said Uncle Jesse.

“That’s the truth,” Jacky’s George corroborated. “On midsummer night two years back. Played to a passel o’ men and maidens merry-making at Zennor till past ten and then went away. A farmer offered ’en a bite of supper and a bed in the cow-linney, but ‘Jiggy’ Dan says ‘No,’ and staggers away southwards for the hills, drunk as a lord—they thought.”

“Most always was,” said Uncle Billy.

“ ’Ess, I grant you, but not this time. Next morning a boy found en dead, up under the ancient stones, as you say, his fiddle under him—a red dog fox on guard.”

“ ’Tis a braa whist place Trewa of a midsummer night,” said Uncle Jesse. “I heard my mother tell that all the tribe o’ witches do meet there to pay their respects to the devil.”

“No tell about it; my grand-da seed ’em wid his own two eyes,” said Uncle Billy, “dancing round a fire they were, dawling and druling—an’ by cripes! one of ’em was his own aunt.”

The company inflated their chests for the last accumulative chorus of ‘The Barley Mow’:

“We’ll drenk et out of the ocean, my braave boys.

Here’s a health to the baarley mow.

The ocean, the river, the well, the hoogshead,

Anker, half-anker, gallon, the pottle, the quaart,

The pint, the half-pint, quarter-pint, nepperkin,

And the Jolly Brown Bowl!”

From a seat by the door rose a tottering ancient with a face like a withered pippin surrounded by a fringe of silver hair.

“Boys!” he quavered. “Boys!”

His thin pipe was drowned in the general clamour.

Jacky’s George banged his pot loudly. Silence reigned instanter.

“What is it, Nehemiah?”

“I’d want for to sing.”

“Then sing you shall and welcome, my dear.”

Benbow objected. “Oh, see, father, nobody don’t want to hear that old blinkard yawling; just as we are getting ...”

“Hold thy clack!” said Jacky’s George. “When I was young I tarred and feathered Nehemiah’s tomcat and let en loose among the maidens in the prayer meeting. Nehemiah chased me three miles in his best clothes and beat the life half out o’ me. I’ve got a respect for en and you’ll have too. Sing up, Nehemiah, my old and bold. What’ll ’e have the crowder play?”

“I wean’t have en play nothing,” said the old and bold Nehemiah. “I got melody sufficient in myself.”

“Blow hard, then, my old beauty, and fear nought.”

Nehemiah, fearing nothing, blew as hard as he was able.

“ ‘As it fell on a holy day,

And upon a holytide a:

John Dory brought him an ambling nag

To Paris for to ride a.

The first man that John Dory did meet

Was good King John of France a;

John Dory could well of his courtesie,

But fell down in a trance a.

A pardon, a pardon, my liege and my king,

For my merry men and me a;

And all the churls in merry England

I’ll bring them bound to thee a.’ ”

“Used to sing better when he had teeth; don’t fetch the words so clear as he did fifty years back, seem me,” said Uncle Jesse to Uncle Billy, under cover of his hand. “Come to think of it, it were up Trewa Hill that ‘Jiggy’ Dan met with the queen of the Pigsies?”

“That’s so,” said Jacky’s George, “and on midsummer night too—come to think of it.”

“Never heard that droll,” said Uncle Billy. “How did it go?” Amid a rising buzz of conversation Nehemiah quavered on:

“ ‘And Nichol was then a Cornish man

A little beside a Bohyde a;

He manned him forth a goodly bark,

With fifty good oars of a side a.’ ”

Uncle Jesse bent towards Uncle Billy. “Dan’l had been playing at Towednack and was wishful to go to Madron to fiddle at a wedding next day. When he gets up a top of Lady Downs the mist comes in so thick he couldn’t see the tip of his nose before him, so down he sits behind a rock and waits for it to blow by. Must ’a fell asleep like that, but he swore he never remembered coming over drowsy even. When he wakes up it is a clear night and starry, and there is some’ot pecking at his sleeve. He takes a look and behold! it is a lil’ wumman no taller ’n your fist, and dressed up beaudiful in di’monds and pearls and she has a crown of gold ’pon her head. ‘Good-evenin’ to you, your ladyship,’ says Dan, seeing her to be a person of quality. ‘The same to you,’ says she. ‘I’m told your name is Jiggy Dan and that you’re the smartest crowder in these western parts.’ ‘Jiggy Dan’l my name, and as for the rest, well, that eddn for me to say, ma’am,’ says he, ‘but ’tis gospel truth for all that!’ ‘I got a bit of a merry-making at my mansion to-night and should be pleased if you’d step along and play for me,’ says she; ‘you shall be well paid.’ ‘I must be in Madron for sure by noon to-morrow,’ says Dan. ‘Time enough for that,’ says she.”

Almost inaudible amidst the chatter Nehemiah droned indefatigably on:

“ ‘Run up, my boy, into the main-top,

And look what thou canst spy a;

Who, ho! who ho! a good ship do I see,

I trow it be John Dory a.’ ”

Uncle Billy took a long swig at his pot. “Well, what then?”

“The lady stamped her lil’ foot on the ground, and behold it yawned abroad and there was a flight of stone steps leading down to the bowels of the earth. ‘Come on,’ says she, and down they goes, Jiggy Dan following she like a dog.”

“Weren’t he ’feared?” Uncle Billy inquired.

“No—he said. Not a didjan of fear in him, only wonderment. Well, down they goes, flight upon flight, and by’n-by they comes to the lady’s mansion, and a braa’ tidy mansion ’tis, with coloured pictures ’pon the walls—cushions ’pon the chairs, all lit up like day with the best wax candles, the quartz crystals on the ceiling sparkling like glass. There is pigsies there by the thousand, men and wummen, dressed up in red, blue and green, and they sits down to supper, Jiggy Dan amongst ’em at the queen’s right hand. After supper they gets to dancing, and Dan’l plays for ’em the best he knows, standing out in the middle of the floor with the little gay people dancing round his ankles. He felt, he said, like a man standing in a field o’ flowers, and they blown in the wind. Hour ’pon hour he plays till he thinks it must be getting on for dawn, so he bows to the queen and says he must be going. ‘Time enough,’ says the queen. ‘Time enough,’ says all the pigsies, twittering like a flock o’ birds. So Dan’l takes up his bow and plays till his head is a maze and his arm nearly falling off. ‘Time enough or not enough I can do no more, your ladyship,’ says he. ‘No more you shall,’ says she. ‘Thou art a noble crowder, the best I ever heard above ground or under,’ says she, ‘so here’s three golden guineas for thy trouble and a cup o’ wine to speed thee,’ she says. Dan’l thanks her kindly, drops the gold into his pocket, pays his respects to the company. All the pigsies clapped their hands and shouted, ‘Drink hearty, Jiggy Dan, King o’ the crowders!’ and Dan’l swallered the wine at a gulp. Next thing he remembers was waking up among the quoit stones on Trewa Hill and it bright day. When he put hand to pocket he found there nought but three dead leaves, oak, ash and thorn, and when he came to Madron the wedding was two days old. That’s the droll he pitched.”

“Aye, that’s the tale he told,” said Jacky’s George, “but if I remembers to rights ...”

The querulous pipe of Nehemiah was heard above the din. “Jacky’s George! George Matthew Baragwanath!”

“What’s come to ’e now, my old valiant?”

“How can I pitch my music with all this here hubadullion going on?”

Jacky’s George banged his pot. “Respect for the ancient man’s music!” he thundered. “Attention all of ’e! Nehemiah had buried two wives and courted a third before most of you was weaned. Pay proper respect to en, dang ’e!”

Order having been momentarily restored, Nehemiah resumed:

“ ‘The roaring cannon then were plied,

And dub-a-dub went the drum a;

The braying trumpets loud they cried

To courage both all and some a.’ ”

“As I was saying, that was the tale Dan’l pitched,” said Jacky’s George, “but there was certain persons in Towednack reported that it weren’t so much pigsies he visited with that night as pigs.”

“Pigs?” Uncle Billy exclaimed.

“Pigs. He left ‘The Miners Arms’ drunk as a lord and fell off the bank clean through the roof of Meshach Harvey’s pig-sty. Meshach left en there a night and a day to sober off. That’s what Towednack says.”

Nehemiah lifted up his voice for the last verse of his epic:

“ ‘The grappling hooks were brought at length,

The brown bill and ...’ ”

Benbow appeared at the door. “Hey! Nehemiah!”

“Eh?”

“Here’s somebody looking for ’e.”

“Well, let her look—can’t a man sing?”

“She says she’ve been searching the world for ’e. It’s two hours past your bed-time.”

“I’d cast scorn ’pon she. On feasten eve I we’ant go to bed at all if I’ve a mind to:

“ ‘The grappling hooks were brought at length,

The brown bill and the sword a;

John Dory at length, for all his strength.

Was clapt ...’ ”

But the ballad of John Dory never got finished. A strong round, feminine arm, bared to the elbow, shot through the doorway and a resolute brown hand took Nehemiah by the scruff, withdrawing him backwards into outer obscurity. From the landing came the noise of a short brisk scuffle, a hearty clap as of open palm meeting unguarded ear, followed by the clump of submissive boots descending wooden stairs—then the slam of the street door.

“H-mm!” said Uncle Jesse. “He won’t bury that one.”

Jacky’s George signed to his son, Benbow, who skipped into the middle of the room.

“A man-o’-war hornpipe, crowder,” said he, tightening his belt. “Lively, now.”

Benbow crossed his arms and held them level with his shoulders hands on elbows. The fiddler took up a position opposite him and began to play. They marched to meet each other, three paces forward, three paces back, and were off. Benbow’s steps were a mere timed shuffle at first, punctuated with a clatter of heels. He faced the fiddler, sidled round him, then passed him back to back, holding himself stiff as a ramrod, his face expressionless. Then he introduced conventional sailor exercises into his movements, running aloft, heaving on a capstan bar, hauling, etc., and calling for more speed finished up merrily, heel and toe. A roar of applause followed him to his seat.

“Well done! Well done!” a fresh voice shouted. “I’ll give a pint of rum and a silver dollar to the man who can better that!”

Everybody looked towards the door. “Squire!”

Ortho it was, in his black and lace, filling the doorway with his height, raffish, handsome, showing his white teeth. “Come on!” he shouted. “Who’s for the money? Show a leg! Tom Clemo, I’ve seen you skip like a pea on a drum-head. Arise and shine!”

Tom Clemo, blushing with pleasure, rose and slouched into position before the fiddler. Ortho passed round the room, addressing everybody by his nickname, shaking old men by the hand, clapping boys familiarly on the shoulder, inquiring tenderly after relatives and ailments, being, in fact, very affable and gracious.

“Hello, Billy Carrots, how’s the new boat sailing? I hear she’s a witch on a wind—What cheer, Cap’n Nick! You’re looking proud, you old rogue. Rheumatics better? That’s good!—’Pon my soul, if it ain’t ‘Kicky’ John! Your hand, John, boy. Hear you made a grand show at Gwenap wrestling. Going for the champion’s belt next, eh? ... Oh, pretty work! pretty work, Tom Clemo! That’s the style—Uncle Jesse, Uncle Jesse, my old shipmate, how goes it? Tell Aunt Susan I’ll be stepping in for a bite of her figgy pudding before long. Lizzie Mary has got another, they tell me. A boy, eh? God bless Lizzie Mary! It’s boys we want in war-time.—Brava! Tom Clemo, Brava! Now the next man.”

He greeted Uncle Billy with an eloquent handclasp and found a seat on the bench beside Jacky’s George. “How are they going?” he asked quietly.

“Warming up, warming up. I’ll have ’em all sweating and swilling in a minute.”

“What are they drinking?”

“Ale. They’ve had four pints a man, so far.”

“Then give ’em a dash of rum all round,” said Ortho. “I’ve raised a couple of likely farm boys in Gwithian, half a dozen tinners in St. Just and a few odd ones here and there. They don’t come very quick.”

“They’ll come quicker at the last,” said Jacky’s George. “When I was in the Young Elijah, privateer, we used to get a scat o’ men the night before sailing. They’d come off soft-like in shore boats and ax no questions and be axed none.”

“Law jumpers?”

“Not always—boys in trouble at home, wanted for little bits of innocent mischief, brawling, poaching, trespass and such-like. There’s lads lying up in old tin-workings and cow-bowjies that is counting off the hours till your Ghost sails, but you won’t hear nothing nor see nothing o’ they till she do sail.”

“How many will I get from here, d’ you think?”

“Couldn’t say. Might get six, might get twelve—if we hook ’em on the rise. There’s no money about, fishing’s been very slight.

“Seth Nicholas might go—he’s been crost in love. ‘Kicky’ John too, his wife’s got too much tongue—aye, and that Treneary over there, there’s a mortgage on his farm.”

A man with the long sad face of a disillusioned spaniel had taken the floor. He danced without movement of his body above the hips, arms trailing at his sides, but his feet moved like things inspired, possessed—toe and heel, double and treble shuffle, then toe and heel again, across and across.

“Who’s that?” Ortho inquired.

“Willie Tregurtha from Pemberth,” said Uncle Jesse. “The cleanest dancer in this hundred—or any other.”

“Clean a is, there’s no gainsaying,” said Uncle Billy. “But to my mind the savage Irish is the prettiest. When I was on my foreign travels over to Ireland after the fish I seen stepping that would beat that. At Kinsale ’twas, at a funeral. They had the corpse strapped up in a corner by his chin and a bar’l o’ whiskey wine open on the floor. There was a heathen Irishman danced, and I declare to you—what with the whiskey wine—it did appear to me he had a hundred legs all dancing different ways.”

Ortho chuckled. “Howsoever, for a poor two-legged man this Tregurtha makes no bad showing.”

“Nimble as a flea,” said Jacky’s George, and tapped his forehead, “but——”

“Pattick?”

“ ’Ess—a bit wished. All his brains have run to his toes, seemingly. I heard tell that when he was courting a maiden once upon a time, he couldn’t think ’pon words to say, so he just marched into her kitchen and skipped his best. He’ll win your money easy enough.”

“He’s welcome to it—but did he win the girl?”

“He did not. She hove a buzza o’ slops over him and married a blacksmith.”

A prodigious thumping of boots and cries of ‘Willie has it!’ ‘Willie gets the dollar!’ brought Ortho to his feet.

“Tregurtha wins,” said he. “Here y’are, neighbour, and well you’ve earned it. Now, landlord, serve a round of hot rum bumbo and we’ll all shake a leg.”

Loud cheers greeted his announcement, louder the appearance of the bumbo.

“Pick your partners!” cried Jacky’s George, sounding his improvised gong. Ortho signed to Tom Clemo and went to the head of the room; Tregurtha and another Pemberth man followed. The brazen laid hold of the bashful by the arms and scruffs and dragged them on to the floor. There was some good-humoured horse-play. One couple started sparring with open hands, another dropped into a hitch, others played leap-frog. The rum was working.

The fiddler mounted on a chair and struck the opening bars.

“Partners face and take hands,” Jacky’s George commanded. “One—two—three—Go!”

The linked pairs clumped four paces sideways to the left, swinging their arms in rhythm; repeated the movement to the right; then, throwing their arms high, twisted back to back and round again, facing each other. For men wadded, seaman-like, with much clothing, muscle-bound by years of set exercise, this last was no easy matter—it being a point of honour not to let go. The younger and slimmer got round quick enough, but the elder and stouter stuck back to back and remained there, grunting and tugging, until one managed to heave the other bodily into the air and so over into position once more.

In a short time a stranger entering would have thought he had stumbled on an inter-tribal wrestling match, heated but good-natured. Three couples were jammed back to back, apparently for life; another had wrestled itself to the floor and two more had collapsed on top of it. They picked themselves up, drew fresh stimulus from their pint pots and plunged into the scrimmage anew, whooping and laughing.

“Warming nicely now, Squire,” Boscawen whispered.

“Yes. Keep that crowder at it and don’t let ’em go dry.”

“Trust me,” said Boscawen and winked.

The heavy hobnailed sea-boots scraped and pounded. Dust rose from the floor, dust fell from the walls, the rafters creaked, the horn boat-lanterns quivered on their hooks. The fiddler, mounted on a chair, sawed at his instrument, bowing, swaying, beating out the unheeded time with his foot, chanting encouragement to the dancers. “Wan—two—three—fower! Round you go, my nimble bullies!—three—fower—five—six! Ha! my sea-dogs! Ha! my Neptunes! Bravely! Bravely!—two—three—fower—five—six ... !”

The heat was oppressive—a late June night and four-and-twenty over-dressed stalwarts struggling to fast music in a close room. Men began to pant and blink the sweat from their eyes. The red faces glistened as with varnish.

Jacky’s George glanced at Ortho, and meeting his eye signed to the fiddler, who brought the tune to a close with a merry flourish and stepped down from his perch.

The dancers sank gasping upon the benches to find their pots miraculously replenished. They sniffed. More bumbo, redolent of rum! Very generous! Very handsome indeed! The Squire, of course. They held their pots high. “Good health, Squire!” “Good speed to ’e, Cap’n!” “Huzza for Squire Penhale!”

“Drink hearty, boys,” said Ortho, waving his hand. “There’s more where that came from.”

The room was hot, they were hot, and their throats were dry with dust and shouting. The bumbo disappeared like magic, and behold! there was more where the first had come from—Bossy and Benny at hand with great steaming jugs. They cheered Ortho afresh and drank again. A princely gentleman, the Squire; a wonderful night! The rum soaked into their warm bodies, the fumes rose to their heads, their souls expanded with rich, vainglorious imaginings. Jacky’s George watched them sharply. The company displayed an unnatural excitement of eye, a certain swagger and recklessness of carriage. Staid men smacked each other on the knees and shoulders, laughed inordinately at trifles and talked all together. Boasts flew about. The moment had come.

A smart rat-a-tat filled the room. All eyes swung towards the door, and there was Bossy wearing a scarlet Marine tunic, beating a tattoo on a side-drum, and his father standing on a bench holding up his hand for silence.

“Boys!” he thundered. “Neighbours! Leave me speak a word. Brave news for one and all.”

“Speak up, landlord,” they shouted. “Say thy say, my dear!”

“Silence for Jacky’s George!”

“Braa’ famous news I got for ’e,” said Jacky’s George. “Cap’n Penhale, whom we do all know, have consented to take command of the Ghost, privateer, of Falmouth, sailing in eight days’ time for the Bay of Biscay to cut off French ships bound in for Rochelle, Bayonne and the Bordeaux river, loaded deep with all the riches of the West. The Ghost mounts eighteen carriage guns and can speak or leave anything that sails, so what she don’t fancy she won’t fight, as the saying is. Never was a sweeter craft seen in Carrick Roads, and Cap’n Penhale could man she three times over with the pick of Falmouth and Penrhyn. But Cap’n Penhale eddn one like that. ‘I’m a western man myself,’ he says to me, ‘and if I do fall upon a bit of good fortune I’d like for western men to share it,’ says he. ‘Men o’ my own valley!’ ”

A rattle on the drum from Bossy; cheers for the Squire led by Benny; becomingly modest protestations from Ortho.

“Well, there ’tis, my lads,” said Jacky’s George. “A Cornish ship, manned by Cornishmen, with a Monk’s Cove cap’n who’s drunk with you and danced with you and who we’ve all known from boyhood. What more d’you want? Them that’s for a golden fortune stand forth. Them that’s for hard work and a pauper’s burial stand back. Cap’n Penhale is leaving for Falmouth to-morrow, so speak now or speak never. Wealth or want? which’ll you have? The Primrose of Padstow put into Plymouth not ten days back with a couple of prizes worth Three Thousand Pound!—the Primrose mounts but eight guns. Her company was driving on the Hoe in hackney coaches, I hear, a keg of gin and a fiddler to each coach, and every man sporting a gold watch. The Prophet Daniel, armed lugger of Fowey, sent in a small prize value five hundred pound and ransomed two Biscay whalers at sea for four thousand pounds. Four Thousand Five Hundred Pounds on one voyage, and she not home yet!”

Somebody growled, “Aye, and the Friendship’s Adventure of St. Ives, she ain’t home yet, either.”

There was a general titter. Everybody knew the fate of the luckless privateer.

Jacky’s George bit his lip, feeling the popular tide against him, then gathering himself, roared the laughter under.

“Blast you! I ain’t talking of a crank old basket mounted with salvaged guns and manned by doltards! I’m talking of the best-found fly-away in the Channel, that can leave the Prophet and Primrose standing and out-fight both together. Now who’s going?”

A man at the back of the room murmured the word ‘pelchurs.’

Jacky’s George crowed contemptuously. “Pilchards, i’ facks! Who said pilchards? Where were the pilchards last season—eh? Not here, not in this Bay. How do ’e know they’ll come this season? You don’t know no more’n I do, or any other mortal man. But the French Indiamen will blow home into Biscay sure enough, their holds bursting, and Cap’n Penhale will be there to meet ’em. Pretty fool you’ll look, Hezekiah Harvey, come autumn, when our brave boys do roll down the valley in po’-chaises, dressed in velvet and gold and find you sitting on the slip, with your elbows sticking out of your smock and your toes out of your boots, still looking out for the pelchurs. Pelchurs! my soul!”

A bellow of laughter greeted this picture of the unpopular Hezekiah. The tide had turned again. Jacky’s George rose on the wave crest shouting, “Who’s for the pilchards and who’s for the gold? the doubloons, the moidores, the spice and the sugar? Who would wear a coat of velvet and rings on his fingers? Walk up, my true blues, my hearts of oak!”

The crowd about the door was divided as by a projectile. A carrot-haired boy, his round face smothered with freckles, burst head-first into the room, knocking the men aside in his hurry. It was he of the bonfire.

“Hi! If Squire wants a man to fight Frenchies, I’ll go,” he cried. “I’m with you, Squire!”

Jacky’s George turned upon his youngest son. “You’ve been promised these two days,” he said, drily. “You’n Bossy and Benny. Now stand aside and give your betters a chance. Anybody else here with the stomach of a louse?”

A tall, dreamy youth slouched across the room and placed himself beside the youngest Baragwanath. “I’ll go wid Rodney.”

The unlucky lover emitted a doleful groan. “Here’s another.”

“Me too,” said the hen-pecked wrestler.

Willie Tregurtha, the inarticulate, shuffled wildly with his feet, as though in an agony of indecision—and held his hand up. Tom Clemo came next and after that men followed with a rush.

“Hooked on the jump,” Bossy exulted. “Hooked and gaffed, by the holy!”

‘Hooked and gaffed!’—the words struck, barbed, into that strange thing which passed in Ortho Penhale for conscience, struck and rankled. Everywhere they would not have offended, anywhere but here. ‘Hooked and gaffed’—his own people, and by him; men he had swam and fished with as a boy, their sons and brothers. Drugged with rum, gulled with sounding talk and then—harpooned. Some might profit, but others would inevitably pay. For a blink of time the packed inn vanished and he saw again the main deck of the Duke in action off the Saintes, a dismounted gun lying across the ghastly red mess that had been its crew, smoke rolling in through the shattered port, the splinters smouldering. But the faces of that crew were now those of Monk’s Cove—Tom Clemo the good-natured, big ‘Kicky’ John and that poor dancing fool—dead, mangled, staring. Horrible! He had a momentary impulse to call it off, to give these deluded simpletons a fair chance; to say, ‘Come if you like, but for God’s sake think it over! Money we may make, but war is a rough game and somebody will get hurt—it may be you. Join me and welcome—but think it over first; to-morrow—when you’re sober.’ He raised his hand, was on the point of speaking, when his eye fell on Jacky’s George. The old adventurer was sitting on his bench, signing men up as fast as they came forward, a smile of benevolent triumph on his lips. Benny stood beside him, doling out advance money and more rum to the signatories, who appeared highly pleased with themselves.

Ortho let his hand drop, the impulse gone. He must have men. It was war-time, damme! The nation was fighting for dear life. Why should not these hulking longshoremen do their share? They were grown men and able-bodied. He took the same risks himself, greater even. Besides, what would Jacky’s George say if he weakened now? He could not weaken. “Crowder, give us a tune,” he shouted. “Bossy, the drum! Drink hearty, one and all! Here’s to the flying Ghost and the money we’ll bring to Monk’s Cove! Now, all together—Roll it out!—

“ ‘While our salt water walls so begird us about

And our cruisers and bruisers keep good looking out,

What force need Old England to fear can offend her

From France or from Spain or from Popish Pretender,

So Huzzah for King George, long long may he reign!

By right of Old England, the Queen of the main!’ ”