I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales Part 14

YOUNG ZEB SELLS HIS SOUL.

These things were reported to Young Zeb as he sat in his cottage, up the coombe, and nursed his pain. He was a simple youth, and took life in earnest, being very slow to catch fire, but burning consumedly when once ignited. Also he was sincere as the day, and had been treacherously used. So he raged at heart, and (for pride made him shun the public eye) he sat at home and raged--the worst possible cure for love, which goes out only by open-air treatment. From time to time his father, Uncle Issy, and Elias Sweetland sat around him and administered comfort after the manner of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.

"Your cheeks be pale, my son--lily-white, upon my soul. Rise, my son, an' eat, as the wise king recommended, sayin', 'Stay me wi' flagons, comfort me wi' yapples, for I be sick o' love.' A wise word that."

"Shall a man be poured out like water," inquired Uncle Issy, "an' turn from his vittles, an' pa.s.s his prime i' blowin' his nose, an' all for a woman?"

"I wasn' blowin' my nose," objected Zeb, shortly.

"Well, in black an' white you wasn', but ye gave me that idee."

Young Zeb stared out of the window. Far down the coombe a slice of blue sea closed the prospect, and the tan sails of a small lugger were visible there, rounding the point to the westward. He watched her moodily until she pa.s.sed out of sight, and turned to his father.

"To-morrow, did 'ee say?"

"Iss, to-morrow, at eleven i' the forenoon. Jim Lewarne brought me word."

"Terrible times they be for Jim, I reckon," said Elias Sweetland.

"All yestiddy he was goin' back'ards an' forrards like a lost dog in a fair, movin' his chattels. There's a hole in the roof of that new cottage of his that a man may put his Sunday hat dro'; and as for his old Woman, she'll do nought but sit 'pon the lime-ash floor wi' her tout-serve over her head, an' call en ivery name but what he was chris'ened."

"Nothin' but neck-an'-crop would do for Tresidder, I'm told," said Old Zeb. "'I've a-sarved 'ee faithful,' said Jim, 'an' now you turns me out wi' a week's warnin'.' 'You've a-crossed my will,' says Tresidder, 'an'

I've engaged a more pushin' hind in your place.' 'Tis a new fashion o'

speech wi' Tresidder nowadays."

"Ay, modern words be drivin' out the old forms. But 'twas only to get Jim's cottage for that strong-will'd supplantin' furriner because Ruby said 'twas low manners for bride an' groom to go to church from the same house. So no sooner was the Lewarnes out than he was in, like shufflin'

cards, wi' his marriage garment an' his brush an' comb in a hand-bag.

Tresidder sent down a mattress for en, an' he slept there last night."

"Eh, but that's a trifle for a campaigner."

"Let this be a warnin' to 'ee, my son niver to save no more lives from drownin'."

"I won't," promised Young Zeb.

"We've found 'ee a great missment," Elias observed to him, after a pause. "The Psa'ms, these three Sundays, bain't what they was for lack o' your enlivenin' flute--I can't say they be. An' to hear your very own name called forth in the banns wi' Ruby's, an' you wi'out part nor lot therein--"

"Elias, you mean it well, no doubt; but I'd take it kindly if you sheered off."

"'Twas a wisht Psa'm, too," went on Elias, "las' Sunday mornin'; an' I cudn' help my thoughts dwellin' 'pon the dismals as I blowed, nor countin' how that by this time to-morrow--"

But Young Zeb had caught up his cap and rushed from the cottage.

He took, not the highway to Porthlooe, but a footpath that slanted up the western slope of the coombe, over the brow of the hill, and led in time to the coast and a broader path above the cliffs. The air was warm, and he climbed in such hurry that the sweat soon began to drop from his forehead. By the time he reached the cliffs he was forced to pull a handkerchief out and mop himself; but without a pause, he took the turning westward towards Troy harbour, and tramped along st.u.r.dily.

For his mind was made up.

Ship's-chandler Webber, of Troy, was fitting out a brand-new privateer, he had heard, and she was to sail that very week. He would go and offer himself as a seaman, and if Webber made any bones about it, he would engage to put a part of his legacy into the adventure. In fact, he was ready for anything that would take him out of Porthlooe. To live there and run the risk of meeting Ruby on the other man's arm was more than flesh and blood could stand. So he went along with his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes fastened straight ahead, his heart smoking, and the sweat stinging his eyelids. And as he went he cursed the day of his birth.

From Porthlooe to Troy Ferry is a good six miles by the cliffs, and when he had accomplished about half the distance, he was hailed by name.

Between the path at this point and the cliff's edge lay a small patch cleared for potatoes, and here an oldish man was leaning on his shovel and looking up at Zeb.

"Good-mornin', my son!"

"Mornin', hollibubber!"

The old man had once worked inland at St. Teath slate-quarries, and made his living as a "hollibubber," or one who carts away the refuse slates.

On returning to his native parish he had brought back and retained the name of his profession, the parish register alone preserving his true name of Matthew Spry. He was a fervent Methodist--a local preacher, in fact--and was held in some admiration by "the people" for his l.u.s.tiness in prayer-meeting. A certain intensity in his large grey eyes gave character to a face that was otherwise quite insignificant. You could see he was a good man.

"Did 'ee see that dainty frigate go cruisin' by, two hour agone?"

"No."

"Then ye missed a sweet pretty sight. Thirty guns, I do b'lieve, an'

all sail set. I cou'd a'most count her guns, she stood so close."

"Hey?"

"She tacked just here an' went round close under Bradden Point; so she's for Troy, that's certain. Be you bound that way, too?"

"Iss, I'll see her, if she's there."

"Best not go too close, my son; for I know the looks o' those customers.

By all accounts you'm a man of too much substance to risk yourself near a press-gang."

Young Zeb gazed over the old man's head at the horizon line, and answered, as if reading the sentence there, "I might fare worse, hollibubber."

The hollibubber seemed, for a second, about to speak; for, of course, he knew Zeb's trouble. But after a while he took his shovel out of the ground slowly.

"Ay, ye might," he said; "pray the Lord ye don't."

Zeb went on, faster than ever. He pa.s.sed Bradden Point and Widdy Cove at the rate of five miles an hour, or thereabouts, then he turned aside over a stile and crossed a couple of meadows; and after these he was on the high-road, on the very top of the hill overlooking Troy Harbour.

He gazed down. The frigate was there, as the hollibubber had guessed, anch.o.r.ed at the harbour's mouth. Two men in a small boat were pulling from her to the farther sh.o.r.e. A thin haze of blue smoke lay over the town at his feet, and the noise of mallets in the ship-building yards came across to him through the clear afternoon. Zeb hardly noticed all this, for his mind was busy with a problem. He halted by a milestone on the brow of the hill, to consider.

And then suddenly he sat down on the stone and shivered. The sweat was still trickling down his face and down his back; but it had turned cold as ice. A new idea had taken him, an idea of which at first he felt fairly afraid. He pa.s.sed a hand over his eyes and looked down again at the frigate. But he stared at her stupidly, and his mind was busy with another picture.

It occurred to him that he must go on if he meant to arrange with Webber, that afternoon. So he got up from the stone and went down the steep hill towards the ferry, stumbling over the rough stones in the road and hardly looking at his steps, but moving now rapidly, now slowly, like a drunken man.

The street that led down to the ferry dated back to an age before carts had superseded pack-horses, and the makers had cut it in stairs and paved it with cobbles. It plunged so steeply, and the houses on either side wedged it in so tightly, that to look down from the top was like peering into a well. A patch of blue water shone at the foot, framing a small dark square--the signboard of the "Four Lords" Inn. Just now there were two or three men gathered under the signboard.

As Young Zeb drew near he saw that they wore pig-tails and round shiny hats: and, as he noticed this, his face, which had been pale for the last five minutes, grew ashen-white. He halted for a moment, and then went on again, meaning to pa.s.s the signboard and wait on the quay for the ferry.

There were half a dozen sailors in front of the "Four Lords." Three sat on a bench beside the door, and three more, with mugs of beer in their hands, were skylarking in the middle of the roadway.

"Hi!" called out one of those on the bench, as Zeb pa.s.sed. And Zeb turned round and came to a halt again.

"What is it?"

"Where 're ye bound, mate?"