Читать книгу Lying Prophets - Eden Phillpotts - Страница 5

Edmund Murdoch's studio stood high on Newlyn hill, and Barron had taken comfortable rooms in a little lodging-house close beside it. The men often enjoyed breakfast in each other's company, but on the following morning, when Murdoch strolled over to see his friend, he found that his rooms were empty.

Barron, in fact, was already nearly a mile from Newlyn, and, at the moment when the younger artist sought him, he stood upon a footpath which ran through plowed fields to the village of Paul. In the bottom of his mind ran a current of thought occupied with the problem of Joan Tregenza, but, superficially, he was concerned with the spring world in which he walked. He stood where Nature, like Artemis, appeared as a mother of many breasts. Brown and solemn in their undulations, they rose about and around him to the sky-line, where the land cut sharply against a pale blue heaven from which tinkled the music of larks. He watched a bird wind upward in a spiral to its song throne; he noted the young wheat brushing the earth with a veil of green; he dawdled where elms stood, their high tops thick with blossom; and he delayed for full fifteen minutes to see the felling of one giant tree. A wedge-shaped cut had been made upon the side where the great elm was to fall, and, upon the other side, two men were sawing through the trunk. There was no sound but the steady hiss of steel teeth gnawing inch by inch to the wine-red heart of the tree. Sunshine glimmered on its leafy crown, and as yet distant branch and bough knew nothing of the midgets and Death below.

Barron took pleasure in seeing the great god Change at work, but he mourned in that a masterpiece, on which Nature had bestowed half a century and more of love, must now vanish.

"A pity," he said, while the executioners rested a few moments from their labors, "a pity to cut down such a noble tree."

One woodman laughed, and the other—an old rustic, brown and bent—made answer:

"I sez 'dang the tree!' Us doan't take no joy in thrawin' en, mister. I be bedoled wi' pain, an' this 'ere sawin's just food for rheumatiz. My back's that bad. But Squire must 'ave money, an' theer's five hundred pounds' value o' ellum comin' down 'fore us done wi' it."

The saw won its way; and between each spell of labor, the ancient man held his back and grumbled.

"Er's Billy Jago," confided the second laborer to Barron, when his companion had turned aside to get some steel wedges and a sledge-hammer. "Er's well-knawn in these paarts—a reg'lar cure. Er used tu work up Drift wi' Mister Chirgwin."

Billy added two wedges to those already hammered into the saw-cut, then, with the sledge, he drove them home and finished his task. The sorrowful strokes rang hollow and mournful over the land, sadder to Barron's ear than fall of earth-clod on coffin-lid. And, upon the sound, a responsive shiver and uneasy tremor ran through trunk and bough to topmost twig of the elm—a sudden sense, as it seemed, of awful evil and ruin undreamed of, but now imminent. Then the monster staggered and the midget struck his last blow and removed himself and his rheumatism. Whereupon began that magnificent descent. Slowly, with infinitely solemn sweep, the elm's vast height swung away from its place, described a wide aerial arc, and so, with the jolting crash and rattle of close thunder, roared headlong to the earth, casting up a cloud of dust, plowing the grass with splintered limbs, then lying very still. From glorious tree to battered log it sank. No man ever saw more instant wreck and ruin fall lightning-like on a fair thing. The mass was crushed flat and shapeless by its own vast weight, and the larger boughs, which did not touch the earth, were snapped short off by the concussion of their fall.

Billy Jago held his back and whined while Barron spoke, as much to himself as the woodman.

"Dear God!" he said, "to think that this glory of the hedge-row—this kingdom of song birds—should come to the making of pauper coffins and lodging-house furniture!"

"Squire must have money; an' folks must have coffins," said Billy. "You can sleep your last sleep so sound in ellum as you can in oak, for that matter."

Feeling the truth of the assertion, Barron admitted it, then turned his back on the fallen king and pursued his way with thoughts reverting to the proposed picture. There was nothing to alarm Joan Tregenza about him; which seemed well, as he meant to approach the girl herself at the first opportunity, and not her parents. Barron did not carry "artist" stamped upon him. He was plainly attired in a thick tweed suit and wore a cap of the same material. The man appeared insignificantly small. He was clean-shaved and looked younger than his five-and-thirty years seen a short distance off, but older when you stood beside him. He strolled now onward toward the sea, and his cheeks took some color from the fine air. He walked with a stick and carried a pair of field-glasses in a case slung over his shoulder. The field-glasses had become a habit with him, but he rarely used them, for his small slate-colored eyes were keen.

Once and again John Barron turned to look at St. Michael's Mount, seen afar across the bay. The magic of morning made it beautiful and the great pile towered grandly through a sunny haze. No detail disturbed the eye under this effect of light, and the mount stood vast, dim, golden, magnified and glorified into a fairy palace of romance built by immortal things in a night. Seen thus, it even challenged the beholder's admiration, of which he was at all times sparing. Until that hour, he had found nothing but laughter for this same mount, likening the spectacle of it, with its castle and cottages, now to a senile monarch with moth-eaten ermine about his toes and a lop-sided crown on his head, now to a monstrous sea-snail creeping shoreward.

Barron, having walked down the hill to Mouse-hole, breasted slowly the steep acclivity which leads therefrom toward the west. Presently he turned, where a plateau of grass sloped above the cliffs into a little theater of banks ablaze with gorse. And here his thoughts and the image they were concerned with perished before reality. Framed in a halo of golden furze, her hands making a little penthouse above her brow, and in her blue eyes the mingled hue of sea and sky, stood a girl looking out at the horizon. The bud of a wondrous fair woman she was, and Barron saw her slim yet vigorous figure accentuated under its drab-brown draperies by a kindly breeze. He noted the sweet, childish freshness of her face, her plump arms filling the sleeves of rusty black, and her feet in shoes too big for them. Her hair was hidden under a linen sun-bonnet, but one lock had escaped, and he noted that it was the color of wheat ripe for the reaping. He regretted it had not been darker, but observed that it chimed well enough with the flaming flowers behind it. And then he frankly praised Nature in his heart for sending her servant such a splendid harmony in gold and brown. There stood his picture in front of him. He gazed a brief second only, and then his quick mind worked to find what human interest had brought Joan Tregenza to this place and turned her eyes to the sea. It might be that herein existed the possibility of the introduction he desired. He felt that victory probably depended on the events of the next two or three minutes. He owed a supreme effort of skill and tact to Fate, which had thus befriended him, and he rose to the occasion.

The girl looked up as he came suddenly upon her, but his eyes were already away and fixed upon the horizon before she turned. Observing that he was not regarding her, she put up her hands again and continued to scan the remote sea-line where a thin trail of dark smoke told of a steamer, itself apparently invisible. Barron took his glasses from their case, and seeing that the girl made no movement of departure, acted deliberately, and presently began to watch a fleet of brown sails and black hulls putting forth from the little harbor below. Then, without looking at her or taking his eyes from the glasses, he spoke.

"Would you kindly tell me what those small vessels are below there just setting out to sea?" he asked.

The girl started, looked round, and, realizing that he had addressed her, made answer:

"They'm Mouzle [Footnote: Mouzle—Mousehole.] luggers, sir."

"Luggers, are they? Thank you. And where are they sailing to? Do you know?"

"Away down-long, south'ard o' the Scillies mostly, arter mackerl. Theer's a power o' mackerl bein' catched just now—thousands an' thousands—but some o' they booats be laskin'—that's just fishin' off shore."

"Ah, a busy time for the fishermen."

"Iss, 'tis."

"Thank you. Good-morning."

"Good-marnin', sir."

He started as though to continue his walk along the cliffs beyond the plateau and the gorse; then he stopped suddenly, actuated, as it seemed, by a chance thought, and turned back to the girl. She was looking out to sea again.

"By the way," he said, unconcernedly, and with no suggestion that anything in particular was responsible for his politeness. "I see you are on the lookout there for something. You may have my glass a moment, if you like, before I go on. They bring the ships very close."

The girl flushed with shy pleasure and seemed a little uncertain what to answer. Barron, meanwhile, showed no trace of a smile, but looked bored if anything, and, with a serious face, handed her the glass, then walked a little way off. He was grave and courteous, but made no attempt at friendship. He had noticed when Joan smiled that her teeth were fine, and that her full face, though sweet enough, was a shade too plump.

"Thank 'e kindly, sir," she said, taking the glass. "You see theer's a gert ship passin' down Channel, an'—an' my Joe's aboard 'er, an' they'm bound for furrin' paarts, an' I promised as I'd come to this here horny-winky [Footnote: Horny-winky—Lonely. Fit place for horny-winks.] plaace to get a last sight o' the vessel if I could." He made no answer, and, after a pause, she spoke again.

"I caan't see naught, but that's my fault, p'raps, not bein' used to sich things."

"Let me try and find the ship," he said, taking the glass, which he had put out of focus purposely. Then, while scanning the horizon where he had noted the smoke-trail, he spoke, his head turned from her.

"Who's Joe, if I may ask? Your brother, I daresay?"

"No, sir; Joe'm my sweetheart."

"There's a big three-masted ship being taken down the Channel by a small steamer."

"Ah! then I reckon that's the 'Anna,' 'cause Joe said 'twas tolerable certain they'd be in tow of a tug."

"You can see the smoke on the edge of the sea. Look below it."

He handed the glasses to her again and heard a little laugh of delight break from her lips. The surprise of the suddenly-magnified spectacle, visible only as a shadow to the naked eye, brought laughter; and Barron, now that the girl's attention was occupied, had leisure to look at her. She was more than a pretty cottage maid, and possessed some distinction and charm. There was a delicacy about her too—a sweet turn of lip, a purity of skin, a set of limb—which gave the lie to her rough speech. She was all Saxon to look at, with nothing of the Celt about her excepting her name and the old Cornish words upon her lips. Those he rejoiced in, for they showed that she still remained a free thing, primitive, innocent of School Boards, or like frost-biting influences.

Barron took mental notes. Joan Tregenza was a careless young woman, it seemed. Her dress had a button or two missing in front, and a safety-pin had taken their place. Her drab skirt was frayed a little and patched in one corner with a square of another material. But the colors were well enough, from the artist's point of view. He noted also that the girl's stockings were darned and badly needed further attention, for above her right shoe-heel a white scrap of Joan was visible. Her hands were a little large, but well shaped; her pose was free and fine, though the field-glasses spoiled the picture and the sun-bonnet hid the contour of her head.

"So you walked out from Mouzle to see the last of Joe's ship?" he asked, quite seriously and with no light note in his voice.

"From Newlyn. I ed'n a Mouzle maid," she answered.

"Is the 'Anna' coming home again soon?"

"No, sir. Her's bound for the Gulf of Californy, round t'other side the world, Joe sez. He reckons to be back agin' come winter."

"That's a long time."

"Iss, 'tis."

But there was no sentiment about the answer. Joan gazed without a shadow of emotion at the vanishing ship, and alluded to the duration of her sweetheart's absence in a voice that never trembled. Then she gave the glass back to Barron with many thanks, and evidently wanted to be gone, but stopped awkwardly, not quite knowing how to depart.

Meanwhile, showing no further cognizance of her, Barron took the glasses himself and looked at the distant ship.

"A splendid vessel," he said. "I expect you have a picture of her, haven't you?"

"No," she answered, "but I've got a lil ship Joe cut out o' wood an' painted butivul. Awnly that's another vessel what Joe sailed in afore."

"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said, "because you were good enough to explain all about the fishing-boats. I'll make a tiny picture of the 'Anna' and paint it and give it to you."

But the girl took fright instantly.

"You'm a artist, then?" she said, with alarm in her face and voice.

He shook his head.

"No, no. Do I look like an artist? I'm only a stranger down here for a day or two. I paint things sometimes for my own amusement, that's all."

"Pickshers?"

"They are not worth calling pictures. Just scraps of the sea and trees and cliffs and sky, to while away the time and remind me of beautiful things after I have left them."

"You ban't a artist ezacally, then?"

"Certainly not. Don't you like artists?"

"Faither don't. He'm a fisherman an' caan't abear many things as happens in the world. An' not artists. Genlemen have arsked him to let 'em take my picksher, 'cause they've painted a good few maidens to Newlyn; an' some of 'em wanted to paint faither as well; but he up an' sez 'No!' short. Paintin's vanity 'cordin' to faither, same as they flags an' cannels an' moosic to Newlyn church is vanity. Most purty things is vanity, faither reckons."

"I'm sure he's a wise man. And I think he's right, especially about the candles and flags in church. And now I must go on my walk. Let me see, shall I bring you the little picture of Joe's ship here? I often walk out this way."

He assumed she would take the picture, and now she feared to object.

Moreover, such a sketch would be precious in her eyes.

"Maybe 'tis troublin' of 'e, sir?"

"I've promised you. I always keep my word. I shall be here to-morrow about mid-afternoon, because it is lonely and quiet and beautiful. I'm going to try and paint the gorse, all blazing so brightly against the sky."

"Them prickly fuzz-bushes?"

"Yes; because they are very beautiful."

"But they'm everywheres. You might so well paint the bannel [Footnote: Bannel—Broom.] or the yether on the moors, mightn't 'e?"

"They are beautiful, too. Remember, I shall have Joe's ship for you to-morrow."

He nodded without smiling, and turned away until a point of the gorse had hidden her from sight. Then he sat down, loaded his pipe, and reflected.

"'Joe's ship,'" he said to himself, "a happy title enough."

And meantime the girl had looked after him with wonder and some amusement in her eyes, had rubbed her chin reflectively—a habit caught from her father—and had then scampered off smiling to herself.

"What a funny gent," she thought, "never laughs nor nothin'. An' I judged he was a artist! But wonnerful kind, an' wonnerful queer, wi' it, sure 'nough."