I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales Part 19

'O what are 'ee seekin', you seven fair maids, All under the leaves o life; Come tell, come tell, what seek ye All under the leaves o' life?'

'We're seekin' for no leaves, Thomas, But for a friend o' thine, We're seekin' for sweet Jesus Christ To be our guide an' thine.'

'Go down, go down, to yonder town An' sit in the gallery, An there you'll see sweet Jesus Christ Nailed to a big yew-tree.'

So down they went to yonder town As fast as foot could fall, An' many a grievous bitter tear From the Virgin's eye did fall.

'O peace, Mother--O peace, Mother, Your weepin' doth me grieve; I must suffer this,' he said, 'For Adam an' for Eve.

'O Mother, take John Evangelist All for to be your son, An' he will comfort you sometimes Mother, as I've a-done.'

'O come, thou John Evangelist, Thou'rt welcome unto me, But more welcome my own dear Son Whom I nursed on my knee.'

Then he laid his head 'pon his right shoulder Seein death it struck him nigh; 'The holy Mother be with your soul-- I die, Mother, I die.'

O the rose, the gentle rose, An the fennel that grows so green!

G.o.d gi'e us grace in every place To pray for our king an' queen.

Furthermore, for our enemies all Our prayers they should be strong; Amen, good Lord; your charity Is the endin' of my song!

In the midst of this carol Ruby, with a light pull on Zeb's arm, brought him to a halt.

"How lovely it all is, Zeb!" She looked upwards at the flying moon, then dropped her gaze over the frosty sea, and sighed gently.

"Just now I feel as if I'd been tossin' out yonder through many fierce days an' nights an' were bein' taken at last to a safe haven.

You'll have to make a good wife of me, Zeb. I wonder if you'll do 't."

Zeb followed the direction of her eyes, and seemed to discern off Bradden Point a dot of white, as of a ship in sail. He pressed her arm to his side, but said nothing.

"Clear your throats, friends," shouted his father, up the road, "an' let fly--"

As I sat on a sunny bank, --A sunny bank, a sunny bank, As I sat on a sunny bank On Chris'mas day i' the mornin,

I saw dree ships come sailin' by, --A-sailin' by, a-sailin' by, I saw dree ships come sailin' by On Chris'mas day i' the mornin'.

Now who shud be i' these dree ships--

And to this measure Zeb and Ruby stepped home.

At the cottage door Zeb thanked the singers, who went their way and flung back shouts and joyful wishes as they went. Before making all fast for the night, he stood a minute or so, listening to their voices as they died away down the road. As he barred the door, he turned and saw that Ruby had lit the lamp, and was already engaged in setting the kitchen to rights; for, of course, no such home-coming had been dreamt of in the morning, and all was in disorder. He stood and watched her for a while, then turned to the window.

After a minute or two, finding that he did not speak, she too came to the window. He bent and kissed her.

For he had seen, on the patch of sea beyond the haven, a white frigate steal up Channel like a ghost. She had pa.s.sed out of his sight by this time, but he was still thinking of one man that she bore.

THE HAUNTED DRAGOON.

Beside the Plymouth road, as it plunges down-hill past Ruan Lanihale church towards Ruan Cove, and ten paces beyond the lych-gate--where the graves lie level with the coping, and the horseman can decipher their inscriptions in pa.s.sing, at the risk of a twisted neck--the base of the churchyard wall is pierced with a low archway, festooned with toad-flax and fringed with the hart's-tongue fern. Within the archway bubbles a well, the water of which was once used for all baptisms in the parish, for no child sprinkled with it could ever be hanged with hemp. But this belief is discredited now, and the well neglected: and the events which led to this are still a winter's tale in the neighbourhood. I set them down as they were told me, across the blue glow of a wreck-wood fire, by Sam Tregear, the parish bedman. Sam himself had borne an inconspicuous share in them; and because of them Sam's father had carried a white face to his grave.

My father and mother (said Sam) married late in life, for his trade was what mine is, and 'twasn't till her fortieth year that my mother could bring herself to kiss a gravedigger. That accounts, maybe, for my being born rickety and with other drawbacks that only made father the fonder.

Weather permitting, he'd carry me off to churchyard, set me upon a flat stone, with his coat folded under, and talk to me while he delved.

I can mind, now, the way he'd settle lower and lower, till his head played hidey-peep with me over the grave's edge, and at last he'd be clean swallowed up, but still discoursing or calling up how he'd come upon wonderful towns and kingdoms down underground, and how all the kings and queens there, in dyed garments, was offering him meat for his dinner every day of the week if he'd only stop and hobbyn.o.b with them-- and all such gammut. He prettily doted on me--the poor old ancient!

But there came a day--a dry afternoon in the late wheat harvest--when we were up in the churchyard together, and though father had his tools beside him, not a tint did he work, but kept travishing back and forth, one time shading his eyes and gazing out to sea, and then looking far along the Plymouth road for minutes at a time. Out by Bradden Point there stood a little dandy-rigged craft, tacking lazily to and fro, with her mains'le all shiny-yellow in the sunset. Though I didn't know it then, she was the Preventive boat, and her business was to watch the Hauen: for there had been a brush between her and the _Unity_ lugger, a fortnight back, and a Preventive man shot through the breast-bone, and my mother's brother Philip was hiding down in the town. I minded, later, how that the men across the vale, in Farmer Tresidder's wheat-field, paused every now and then, as they pitched the sheaves, to give a look up towards the churchyard, and the gleaners moved about in small knots, causeying and glancing over their shoulders at the cutter out in the bay; and how, when all the field was carried, they waited round the last load, no man offering to cry the _Neck_, as the fashion was, but lingering till sun was near down behind the slope and the long shadows stretching across the stubble.

"Sha'n't thee go underground to-day, father?" says I, at last.

He turned slowly round, and says he, "No, sonny. 'Reckon us'll climb skywards for a change."

And with that, he took my hand, and pushing abroad the belfry door began to climb the stairway. Up and up, round and round we went, in a sort of blind-man's-holiday full of little glints of light and whiff's of wind where the open windows came; and at last stepped out upon the leads of the tower and drew breath.

"There's two-an'-twenty parishes to be witnessed from where we're standin', sonny--if ye've got eyes," says my father.

Well, first I looked down towards the harvesters and laughed to see them so small: and then I fell to counting the church-towers dotted across the high-lands, and seeing if I could make out two-and-twenty.

'Twas the prettiest sight--all the country round looking as if 'twas dusted with gold, and the Plymouth road winding away over the hills like a long white tape. I had counted thirteen churches, when my father pointed his hand out along this road and called to me--

"Look'ee out yonder, honey, an' say what ye see!"

"I see dust," says I.

"Nothin' else? Sonny boy, use your eyes, for mine be dim."

"I see dust," says I again, "an' suthin' twinklin' in it, like a tin can--"

"Dragooners!" shouts my father; and then, running to the side of the tower facing the harvest-field, he put both hands to his mouth and called:

"_What have 'ee? What have 'ee?_"--very loud and long.

"_A neck--a neck!_" came back from the field, like as if all shouted at once--dear, the sweet sound! And then a gun was fired, and craning forward over the coping I saw a dozen men running across the stubble and out into the road towards the Hauen; and they called as they ran, "_A neck--a neck!_"

"Iss," says my father, "'tis a neck, sure 'nuff. Pray G.o.d they save en!

Come, sonny--"

But we dallied up there till the hors.e.m.e.n were plain to see, and their scarlet coats and armour blazing in the dust as they came. And when they drew near within a mile, and our limbs ached with crouching--for fear they should spy us against the sky--father took me by the hand and pulled hot foot down the stairs. Before they rode by he had picked up his shovel and was shovelling out a grave for his life.

Forty valiant hors.e.m.e.n they were, riding two-and-two (by reason of the narrowness of the road) and a captain beside them--men broad and long, with hairy top-lips, and all clad in scarlet jackets and white breeches that showed bravely against their black war-horses and jet-black holsters, thick as they were wi' dust. Each man had a golden helmet, and a scabbard flapping by his side, and a piece of metal like a half-moon jingling from his horse's cheek-strap. 12 D was the numbering on every saddle, meaning the Twelfth Dragoons.

Tramp, tramp! they rode by, talking and joking, and taking no more heed of me--that sat upon the wall with my heels dangling above them--than if I'd been a sprig of stonecrop. But the captain, who carried a drawn sword and mopped his face with a handkerchief so that the dust ran across it in streaks, drew rein, and looked over my shoulder to where father was digging.

"Sergeant!" he calls back, turning with a hand upon his crupper; "didn't we see a figger like this a-top o' the tower, some way back?"

The sergeant p.r.i.c.ked his horse forward and saluted. He was the tallest, straightest man in the troop, and the muscles on his arm filled out his sleeve with the three stripes upon it--a handsome red-faced fellow, with curly black hair.

Says he, "That we did, sir--a man with sloping shoulders and a boy with a goose neck." Saying this, he looked up at me with a grin.