Lying Prophets Part 14

That evening Thomasin had another spasm of face-ache and went to bed soon after drinking tea. Michael was due at home about ten o'clock or earlier, and Joan--having set out supper, made all ready, and ascertained that her stepmother had gone to sleep--walked out to the pierhead, there to wait for Mr. Tregenza and Tom. Under moonlight, the returning luggers crept homeward, like inky silhouettes on a background of dull silver. Every moment added to the forest of masts anch.o.r.ed at the moorings outside the harbor; every minute another rowing-boat shot between the granite piers, slid silently into the darkness under sh.o.r.e, leaving moonlit rings widening out behind at each dip of the oars. Joan sat down under the lighthouse and waited in the stillness for her father's boat. Yellow flashes, like fireflies, twinkled along through Newlyn, and above them the moon brought out square patches of silver-bright roof seen through a blue night. Now and then a bell rang in the harbor, and lights leaped here and there, mingling red snakes and streamers of fire with the white moonbeams where they lay on still water. Then Joan knew the fish were being sold by auction, and she grew anxious for her father's return, fearing prices might have fallen before he arrived. Great periods of silence lay between the ringings of the bell, and at such times only faint laughter floated out from sh.o.r.e, or blocks chipped and rattled as a sail came down or a concertina squeaked fitfully where it was played on a Norwegian iceboat at the harbor quay. The tide ran high, and Joan watched the lights reflected in the harbor and wondered why the gold of them contrasted so ill with the silver from the moon.

Presently two men came along to the pierhead. They smoked, looked at the sea, and did not notice her where she sat in shadow. One, the larger, wore knickerbockers, talked loudly, and looked a giant in the vague light; the other was m.u.f.fled up in a big ulster, and Joan would not have recognized Barron had he not spoken. But he answered his friend, and then the girl's heart leaped to hear that quiet, unimpa.s.sioned voice. He spoke of matters which she did not understand, of pictures and light and all manner of puzzles set by Nature for the solution of art; but though for the most part his remarks conveyed no meaning to her, yet he closed a sentence with words that made her happy, and warmed her heart and left a precious memory behind them.

"Moonlight is a problem only less difficult than sunshine," he said to his friend. "Where are you going to get that?" and he pointed to the sea.

"It's been jolly well done all the same."

"Never. It is not to be done. You can suggest by a trick, but G.o.d defend us from tricks and sleight-of-hand in connection with the solemn business of painting pictures. Let us be true or nothing."

They walked away together, and Joan pondered over the last words. Truth seemed an eternal, abiding pa.s.sion with John Barron, and the contemplation of this idea gave her considerable pleasure. She did not know that a man may be at once true to his art and a liar to his fellows.

Presently her father returned with Tom, and the three walked home together.

Gray Michael appeared quietly satisfied that his son was shaping well and showing courage and nerve. But he silenced the lad quickly enough when Tom began to talk with some gasconade concerning greet deeds done westward of the Scilly Islands.

"'Let another man praise thee an' not thine awn mouth,' my bwoy," said Mr.

Tregenza. "It ban't the wave as makes most splash what gaws highest up the beach, mind. You get Joan to teach 'e how to peel 'taties, 'cause 'tis a job you made a tidy bawk of, not to mention no other. Keep your weather-eye liftin' an' your tongue still. Then you'll do. An' mind--the bwoat's clean as a smelt by five o'clock to-morrow marnin', an' no later."

Tom, dashed by these base details, answered seaman fashion:

"Ay, ay, faither."

Then they all tramped home, and the boy enjoyed the glories of a late supper, though he was half asleep before he had finished it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE KISS

By half-past five o'clock, Mr. Tregenza's black lugger was off again in a gray dawn all tangled with gold on the eastern horizon.

His mother had given Tom an early breakfast at half-past four, and the youngster, agape and dim-eyed at first, speedily brightened up, for he had a willing listener, in the candle-light and poured a tale of moving incidents into Thomasin's proud but uneasy mind.

"Them Pritchards sez as they'll make a busker [Footnote: _Busker_--A rare good fisherman.] of me, 'cause it blawed a bit issterday marnin', but 'twas all wan to me; an' you abbun no call to fret yourself, nohow, mother, 'cause faither's 'lowed to be the best sailor in the fleet an' theer ban't a better foul-weather boat sails from Newlyn than ourn."

He chattered on, larding his discourse with new words picked up aboard, and presently rolled off to get things shipshape just as his father came down to breakfast.

When the men had gone, little remained to be done that day, and, by half-past seven, about which hour Mrs. Tregenza went into the village that she might whine with a widow who had two boys in the fleet, Joan found herself free until the afternoon. She determined therefore to reach Gorse Point before the artist should arrive there, and set off accordingly.

Early though she was, she had but a short time to wait, for Barron appeared with his big canvas by nine o'clock. She thought he showed more pleasure than usual at the sight of her. Certainly he shook hands and congratulated her upon such early hours.

"This is an unexpected pleasure, Joan. You must have been up betimes indeed."

"Iss fay, us took breakfus' by five, an' faither sailed 'fore half-past.

'Tis busy times for fishin' folk when the mackerl begins shoalin'."

"I'm glad I came back to my den in the fields yonder and didn't stop in Newlyn last night. You must see my little cow-byre some day or other, Joan.

I've made it wonderfully snug. Farmer Ford is good enough to let me take possession of it for the present; and I've got food and drink stowed away, and a beautiful bed of sweet, withered bracken. I sleep well there, and the dawn comes in and wakens me."

"You ban't feared o' piskeys nor nothin' in a lawnsome plaace like thicky byre?"

"No, no--the rats are rather intrusive, though."

"But they'm piskeys or spriggans so like's not! You see, the lil people takes all manner o' shaapes, Mister Jan; an' they chaanges 'em tu, but every time they chaanges they've got to alter into somethin' smaller than what they was before. An' so, in coorse of time, they do say they comes down into muryans an' such like insects."

"Piskeys or no piskeys, I've caught several in a trap and killed them."

"They'm gashly things, rats, an' I shouldn't think as no good piskeys would turn into varmints like them."

"More should I. But something better than rats came to see me last night, Joan. Guess who it was."

"I dunnaw."

"Why, you came!"

"Me, Mister Jan! You must a bin dreamin'!"

"Yes, of course I was; but such a lovely dream, Joan! You see, men who paint pictures and love what is beautiful and dream about beautiful things and beautiful people see all sorts of visions sometimes. I have pictures in my head a thousand times more splendid than any I shall ever put upon canvas, because mere paint-brushes cannot do much, even when they are in the cleverest hands; but a man's brain is not bound down by material, mechanical matters. My brain made a picture of you last night--a picture that came and looked at me on my fern bed--a picture so real, so alive that I could see it move and hear it laugh. You think that wonderful. It isn't really, because my brain has done nothing but think of you now for nearly six weeks. My eye studies you and stamps you upon my brain; then, when night comes, and no man works, and the world is dark and silent, my brain sets off on its own account and raises up a magic vision just to show me what you really are--how different to this poor daub here."

"Lard, Mister Jan! I never heard tell of sich a coorious thing as that."

"And the pretty dream-Joan can talk almost as well as you can! Why, last night, while I was half awake and half asleep, she put her hand upon my shoulder and said kind things, but I dared not move or kiss her hand at first for fear she would vanish if I did."

Joan laughed.

"That is a funny story, sure 'nough," she said. "I 'specs 'twas awnly another fairy body, arter all."

"No, it wasn't. She had your voice and your spirit in her; and that picture which my brain painted for me was so much better than the thing my hand has painted that, in the morning, I was almost tempted to destroy this altogether. But I didn't."

"An' what did this here misty sort o' maid say to 'e?"

"Strange things, strange things. Things I would give a great deal to hear you say. It seemed that you had come, Joan, it seemed that you had purposely come from your little cottage on the cliff through the darkness before dawn. Why? To share my loneliness, to brighten my poor shadowy life.

Dreams are funny things, are they not? What d'you think you said?"

"Sure I dunnaw."

"Why, you said that you were not going to leave me any more; that you believed in me and that you had come to me because it was bad for a man to live all alone in the world. You said that you felt alone too--without me.

And it made me feel happy to hear you say that, though I knew, all the time, that it was not the real beautiful Joan who spoke to me."

Thereupon the girl asked a question which seemed to argue some sharpening of intelligence within her.

"An' when I spoke that, what did you say, Mister Jan?"

"I didn't say anything at all. I just took that sweet Joan-of-dreams into my arms and kissed her."