Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts Part 13

I think his first motion was to thrust me away; but I caught him by the hand, and with many protestations broke into my tale, giving him no time to forbid me. And presently he drew me inside, and shutting the door, stood upright by the table, facing me with his fingers on the rim as if they rested there for support.

"Paschal," said he, when at length I drew back, "this must not come to my lady's ears. She has been ailing of late."

"Ay, sir, and long since: of a disease past your curing."

"G.o.d help us! I hope not," said he; then broke out violently: "She is innocent, Paschal; innocent as a child!"

"Innocent!" cried I, in a voice which showed how little I believed.

"Paschal," he went on, "you are my servant, but my friend also, I hope.

Nay, nay, I know. I swear to you, then, these things do but happen in her sleep. In her waking senses she is mine, as one day she shall be mine wholly. But at night, when her will is dissolved in sleep, the evil spirit wakes and goes questing after its master."

"Mahound?" I stammered, quaking.

"Be it Satan himself," said he, very low and resolute, "I will win her from him, though my own soul be the ransom."

"Dear my Master," I began, and would have implored him on my knees; but he pointed to the door. "I will win her," he repeated. "What you have seen to-night happens more rarely now. Moreover, the summer is beginning--"

He paused: yet I had gathered his meaning. "There will be less peril for the ships for a while," said I.

Said he: "To _them_ she intends no harm. It is for her master the light waves. Paschal, I am an unhappy man!" He flung a hand to his forehead, but recovering himself peered at me under the shadow of it. "If you could watch--often--as you have done to-night--you might protect others from seeing--"

The wisdom of this at least I saw, and gave him my promise readily.

Upon this understanding (for no more could be had) I withdrew me.

The next day, therefore, I moved my bed to a turret-chamber on the angle of the south-eastern wall whence I could keep my lady's window in view.

I was never a man to need much sleep: but if, through the year which followed, the apparition escaped once or twice without my cognisance, I dare take oath this was the extent of it. It appeared more rarely, as my Master had promised: and in the end (I think) scarce above once a month. In form it never varied from the cresseted globe of flame I had first seen, and always it took the path across the fields towards Cuddan Point. No sound went with it, or announced its going or return: and while it was absent, my lady's chamber would be utterly dark and silent.

My custom was not to follow it (which I had proved to be useless), but to let myself out and patrol the walls, satisfying myself that no watchers lurked about the castle. I understood now that Pengersick was reported throughout the neighbourhood to be haunted: and such a report is not the worst protection. These vague tales kept aloof the country people who, but for them, had almost certainly happened on the secret.

And night after night while I watched, my Master wrestled with the Evil One in his room.

The last time I saw the apparition was on the night of May 10th, 1529, more than three years after my lady's first coming to Pengersick.

I was prepared for it: for she had been singing at her window a great part of the afternoon, and I had learnt to be warned by this mood.

The night was a dark one, with flying clouds and a stiff breeze blowing up from the south-east. The flame left my lady's window at the usual hour--a few minutes after midnight--but returned some while before its due time. In ordinary it would be away for an hour and a half, or from that to two hours, but this night I had scarcely begun my rounds before I saw it returning across the fields. Nor was this the only surprise.

For as I watched it up the wall and saw it gain my lady's window, I heard the hound within lift up its voice in a long, shuddering howl.

I lost no time, but made my way to my Master's room. He, too, had heard the dog's howl, and was strangely perturbed. "It means something.

It means something," he kept repeating. He had already run to his wife's chamber, but found her in a deep slumber and the hound (which always slept on the floor at her bed's foot) composing itself to sleep again, with jowl dropped on its fore-paws.

The next morning I had fixed to ride into the Market Jew to fetch a packet of books which was waiting there for my Master. But at the entrance of the town I found the people in great commotion, the cause of which turned out to be a group of Turk men gathered at the hither end of the causeway leading to the Mount. One told me they were Moslems (which indeed was apparent at first sight) and that their ship had run ash.o.r.e that night, under the Mount; but with how much damage was doubtful.

She lay within sight, in a pretty safe position, and not so badly fixed but I guessed the next tide would float her if her bottom were not broken. The Moslems (nine in all) had rowed ash.o.r.e in their boat and landed on the causeway; but with what purpose they had no chance to explain: for the inhabitants, catching sight of their knives and scymeters, could believe in nothing short of an intent to murder and plunder; and taking courage in numbers, had gathered (men and women) to the causeway-head to oppose them. To be sure these fears had some warrant in the foreigners' appearance: who with their turbans, tunics, dark faces and black naked legs made up a show which Market Jew had never known before nor (I dare say) will again.

Nor had the mildness of their address any effect but to raise a fresh commotion. For, their leader advancing with outstretched hands and making signals that he intended no mischief but rather sued for a.s.sistance, at once a cry went up, "The Plague!" "The Plague!" at which I believe the crowd would have scattered like sheep had not a few st.u.r.dy volunteers with pikes and boat-hooks forbidden his nearer approach.

Into this knot the conference had locked itself when I rode up and--the crowd making way for me--addressed the strangers in the _lingua Franca_, explaining that my Master of Pengersick was a magistrate and would be forward to help them either with hospitality or in lending aid to get their ship afloat; further that they need have no apprehension of the crowd, which had opposed them in fear, not in churlishness; yet it might be wise for the main body to stay and keep guard over the cargo while their spokesman went with me to Pengersick.

To this their leader at once consented; and we presently set forth together, he walking by my horse with an agile step and that graceful bearing which I had not seen since my days of travel: a bearded swarthy man, extraordinarily handsome in Moorish fashion and distinguished from his crew not only by authority as patron of the ship, but by a natural dignity. I judged him about forty. Me he treated with courtesy, yet with a reticence which seemed to say he reserved his speech for my Master. Of the wreck he said nothing except that his ship had been by many degrees out of her bearings: and knowing that the Moorish disasters in Spain had thrown many of their chiefs into the trade of piracy I was contented to smoke such an adventurer in this man, and set him down for one better at fighting than at navigation.

With no more suspicion than this I reached Pengersick and, bestowing the stranger in the hall, went off to seek my Master. For the change that came over my dear lord's face as he heard my errand I was in no way prepared. It was terrible.

"Paschal," he cried, sinking into a chair and spreading both hands helplessly on the table before him, "it is _he!_ Her time is come, and mine!"

It was in vain that I reasoned, protesting (as I believed) that the stranger was but a chance pirate cast ash.o.r.e by misadventure; and as vain that, his fears infecting me, I promised to go down and get rid of the fellow on some pretence.

"No," he insisted, "the hour is come. I must face it: and what is more, Paschal, I shall win. Another time I shall be no better prepared.

Bring him to my room and then go and tell my lady that I wish to speak with her."

I did so. On ushering in the stranger I saw no more than the bow with which the two men faced each other: for at once my Master signalled me to run on my further errand. Having delivered my message at my lady's door, I went down to the hall, and lingering there, saw her pa.s.s along the high gallery above the dais towards my lord's room, with the hound at her heels.

Thence I climbed the stair to my own room: locked the door and anon unlocked it, to be ready at sudden need. And there I paced hour after hour, without food, listening. From the courtyard came the noise of the grooms chattering and splashing: but from the left wing, where lay my Master's rooms, no sound at all. Twice I stole out along the corridors and hung about the stair head: but could hear nothing, and crept back in fear to be caught eavesdropping.

It was about five in the afternoon (I think), all was still in the courtyard, when I heard the click of a latch and, running to the window, saw the porter closing his wicket gate. A minute later, on a rise beyond the wall, I spied the Moor. His back was towards the castle and he was walking rapidly towards Market Jew: and after him padded my lady's hound.

I hurried along the pa.s.sages and knocked at my Master's door. No one answered. I could not wait to knock again, but burst it open.

On the floor at my feet lay my Master, and hard by the window my Mistress with her hands crossed upon a crucifix. My Master had no crucifix: but his face wore a smile--a happier one than it had worn for years.

[1] About 150,000 pounds in present money.

FROZEN MARGIT

_A Narrative of the sufferings of Mr. Obed Lanyon, of Vellingey-Saint Agnes, Cornwall; Margit Lanyon, his wife; and seventeen persons (mostly Americans) shipwrecked among the Quinaiult Tribes of the N.W. Coast of America, in the winter of 1807-8. With some remarkable Experiences of the said Margit Lanyon, formerly Pedersen. Written by the Survivor, Edom Lanyon, sometime a Commander in the service of the Honourable East India Company._

My twin brother Obed and I were born on the 21st of March, 1759 (he being the elder by a few minutes), at Vellingey-St. Agnes, or St. Ann's, a farm on the north coast of Cornwall, owned and cultivated by our father Renatus Lanyon. Our mother was a Falmouth woman, daughter of a ship's captain of that port: and I suppose it was this inclined us to a sea-faring life. At any rate, soon after our fifteenth birthday we sailed (rather against our father's wish) on a short coasting voyage with our grandfather--whose name was William Dustow.

A second voyage in the early summer of 1776 took us as far as the Thames. It happened that the famous Captain Cook was just then recruiting for his third and (as it proved) his last voyage of discovery. This set us talking and planning, and the end was that we stole ash.o.r.e and offered ourselves. Obed had the luck to be picked.

Though very like in face, I was already the taller by two inches; and no doubt the Captain judged I had outgrown my strength. But it surprised me to be rejected when Obed was taken; and disappointed me more: for, letting alone the prospect of the voyage, we two (as twins, and our parents' only children) were fond of each other out of the common degree, and had never thought to be separated.

To speak first of Obed:--Captain Cook put some questions, and finding that we were under our grandfather's care, would do nothing without his consent. We returned to the ship and confessed to the old man, who pretended to be much annoyed. But next day he put on his best clothes and went in search of the great seaman, to Whitehall; and so the matter was arranged. Obed sailed in July on board the _Discovery_; shared the dangers of that voyage, in which the ships followed up the N.W. Coast of America and pushed into Behring's Strait beyond the 70th parallel; was a witness, on February 4th, 1779, of his commander's tragical end; and returned to England in October, 1780. Eleven years later he made another voyage to the same N.W. American Coast; this time as master's mate under Vancouver, who had kept an interest in him since they sailed together under Cook, and thought highly of him as a practical navigator and draughtsman. It was my brother who, under Vancouver, drew up the first chart of the Straits of Fuca, which Cook had missed: and I have been told (by a Mr. G--, a clerk to the Admiralty) that on his return he stood well for a lieutenant's commission--the rule of the Service being stretched now and then to favour these circ.u.mnavigating seamen, many of whom worked their way aft from the hawse-hole to the quarter deck.

But my father and mother dying just then, and the former having slipped a particular request into his will, Obed threw up the sea and settled down in Vellingey as a quiet yeoman farmer.

Meanwhile, in 1779, I had entered the sea service of the Honourable East India Company; and with pa.s.sable good fortune had risen in it pretty fast. Enough to say, that by the spring of 1796 I was looking forward to the command of a ship. Just then my fortune deserted me. In a sudden fear of French invasion, our Government bought the four new ships which the Company had building (and a bad bargain they proved).

This put a stop for the time to all chance of promotion; and a sharp attack of jaundice falling on top of my disappointments, I took the usual decrease of pay and the Board's promise to remember my services on a proper occasion, and hauled ash.o.r.e to Vellingey for a holiday and a thorough refit of health.

I believe that the eight or nine following months which Obed and I spent together were the happiest in our two lives. He was glad enough to shoulder off the small business of the farm and turn--as I have seen so many men play, in a manner, at the professions they have given over--to his favourite amus.e.m.e.nt of sounding the coast of Vellingey and correcting the printed charts. He kept a small lugger mainly for this purpose, and plied her so briskly that he promised to know the sea-bottom between Kelsey Head and G.o.drevy Rock better than his own fields. As for me, after years of salt water and stumping decks, I asked nothing better than to steer a plough and smell broken soil, and drowse after supper in an armchair, with good tobacco and Obed for company.

In this way we pa.s.sed the winter of 1796-7; until the lambing season, which fell midway in February. The year opened wet, with fresh south westerly winds, which in the second week chopped suddenly; and for four days a continuous freezing gale blew on us from the N.W. It was then that the lambs began to drop; and for three nights I exchanged pipe and fireside for a lantern and the lower corner of Friar's Parc at the back of the towans, where the ewes were gathered in the lew.[1] They kept us so busy that for forty-eight hours we neither changed our clothes (at least, I did not) nor sat down to a meal. The sand about Vellingey is always driving, more or less; and the gale so mixed it up with fine snow that we made our journeys to and from the house, so to speak, blindfold, and took our chance of the drifts. But the evening of the 11th promised better. The wind dropped, and in an hour fell to a flat calm: then, after another hour, began to draw easily off sh.o.r.e--the draught itself being less noticeable than the way in which it smoothed down the heavy sea running. Though the cold did not lift, the weather grew tolerable once more: and each time I crossed the townplace[2] with a lamb in my arms, I heard the surf running lower and lower in the porth below Vellingey.

By day-break (the 12th) it was fallen to nothing: the sky still holding snow, but sky and sea the same colour; a heavy blueish grey, like steel.

I was coming over the towans, just then, with a lamb under either arm (making twelve, that night) when I happened to look seaward, and there saw a boat tossing, about a gunshot from the sh.o.r.e.

She was a long boat, painted white; very low in the sheer, and curved at stem and stern like a Norwegian; her stem rounded off without a transom, and scarcely bluffer than her bows. She carried a mast, stepped right forward; but no sail. She was full of people. I counted five sitting, all white with snow--one by the mast, three amidships, and one in the stern sheets, steering. At least, he had a hand on the tiller: but the people had given over pulling, and the boat without steerage-way was drifting broadside-on towards the sh.o.r.e with the set of the tide.

While I stood conning her, up at the house the back-door opened, and my brother stepped out and across the yard to milk the cows. His milk-pails struck against the door-post, and sounded as clear as bells.

I shouted to him and pointed towards the boat: and after looking a moment, he set down his pails and started off at a run, down towards the porth. I then hurried towards the house, where I found Selina, our old housekeeper, in the kitchen, tending the lambs with warm milk.