Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts Part 30

"'Look here,' I asked; 'it may seem an irrelevant question, but has the 2-th made any changes in its uniform lately?--any important changes, I mean.'

"'No: the War Office has been obliging enough to leave us alone in that respect: out of sight out of mind, I suppose. In point of fact we've kept the same rig--officers and men--for something like a quarter of a century.' He paused. 'I see what you're driving at. The man, you think, may be an old deserter!'

"'Not so fast, please. Now here's another question. You remember the night after the wreck of the _Nerbuddha_: the night you took a turn in Lansulyan Church, watching the bodies? You came to me in the morning with a story which I chose to laugh at--'

"'About the face at the window, you mean?' d.i.c.k gave a mock shudder.

'I suppose my nerves were shaken. I've been through some queer things since: but upon my soul I'd as soon face the worst of them again as take another spell with a line of corpses in that church of yours.'

"'But--the face?'

"'Well, at the time I'd have sworn I saw it: peering in through the last window westward in the south aisle--the one above the font. I ran out, you remember, and found n.o.body: then I fetched a lantern and flashed it about the churchyard.'

"'There were gravestones in plenty a man could hide behind. Should you remember the face?'

"d.i.c.k considered for a while. 'No: it didn't strike me as a face so much as a pair of eyes; I remember the eyes only. They were looking straight into mine."

"'Well, now. I've always guessed there was something queer about that _Nerbuddha_ business: though till now I've never told a soul my chief reason for believing so. After you left me that night, and while I was dressing, it occurred to me from the last of the three signals--the only one I saw--that the wreck must be somewhere near the Carracks, and that Farmer Tregaskis had a seine-boat drawn up by the old pallace [1] at Gunner's Meadow, just opposite the Carracks.'"

"'It struck me that if it were possible to knock up Tregaskis and his boys and the farmhand who slept on the premises, and get this boat launched through the surf, we should reach the wreck almost as soon as the life-boat. So I took a lantern and ran across the fields to the farm. Lights were burning there in two or three windows, and Mrs.

Tregaskis, who answered my knock, told me that her husband and the boys had already started off--she believed for Gunner's Meadow, to launch their boat. There had been talk of doing so, anyhow, before they set out. Accordingly, off I pelted hot-foot for the meadow, but on reaching the slope above it could see no lanterns either about the pallace or on the beach. It turned out afterwards that the Tregaskis family had indeed visited the beach, ten minutes ahead of me, but judging it beyond their powers to launch the boat short-handed through the surf, were by this time on their way towards the Porth. I thought this likely enough at the time, but resolved to run down and make sure.

"'Hitherto I had carried my lantern unlit: but on reaching the coombe bottom I halted for a moment under the lee of the pallace-wall to strike a match. In that moment, in a sudden lull of the breakers, it seemed to me that I heard a footstep on the loose stones of the beach; and having lit my candle hastily I ran round the wall and gave a loud hail. It was not answered: the sound had ceased: but hurrying down the beach with my lantern held high, I presently saw a man between me and the water's edge. I believe now that he was trying to get away un.o.bserved: but finding this hopeless he stood still with his hands in his pockets, and allowed me to come up. He was bare-headed, and dressed only in shirt and trousers and boots. Somehow, though I did not recognise him, I never doubted for a moment that the man belonged either to my own or the next parish. I was a newcomer in those days, you remember.

"'"Hulloa!" said I, "where do you come from?"'

"'He stared at me stupidly and jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the west. I inferred that he came from one of the sh.o.r.e-farms in that direction. He looked like a middle-aged farmer--a grizzled man with a serious, responsible face. "But you're wet through," I said, for his clothes were drenched.

"'For answer he pointed towards the surf, and lifting my lantern again, I detected a small cask floating a little beyond the breakers.

Now before coming to Lansulyan I had heard some ugly tales of the wrecking done in these parts, and at the sight of this I fairly lost my temper. 'It seems to me,' said I, "a man of your age should be ashamed of himself, lurking here for miserable booty when there are lives to save! In G.o.d's name, if you have a spark of manhood in you, follow me to the Porth!" I swung off in a rage, and up the beach: after a moment I heard him slowly following. On the cliff track I swallowed down my wrath and waited for him to come up, meaning to expostulate more gently.

He did not come up. I hailed twice, but he had vanished into the night.

"'Now this looked ugly. And on reflection, when I reached the Porth and heard men wondering how on earth a fine ship found herself on Menawhidden in such weather, it looked uglier yet. The fellow--now I came to think it over--had certainly shrunk from detection.

Then, thirty hours later, came your story of the face, and upset me further. I kept my suspicions to myself, however. The matter was too grave for random talking: but I resolved to keep eyes and ears open, and if this horrible practice of wrecking did really exist, to expose it without mercy.

"'Well I have lived some years since in Lansulyan: and I am absolutely sure now that no such horrors exist, if they ever existed.'

"'But the man?' was d.i.c.k's query.

"'That's what I'm coming to. You may be sure I looked out for him: for, unlike you, I remembered the face I saw. Yet until to-day I have never seen it since.'

"'Until to-day?'

"'Yes. The man I saw on the beach was Miss Felicia's gardener, John Emmet. He has shaved his beard; but I'll swear to him.'

"All that d.i.c.k could do was to pull the pipe from his mouth and give a long whistle. 'But what do you make of it?' he asked with a frown.

"'As yet, nothing. Where does the man live?'

"'In a small cottage at the end of the village, just outside the gate of the kitchen-garden.'

"'Married?'

"'No: a large family lives next door and he pays the eldest girl to do some odd jobs of housework.'

"'Then to-morrow,' said I, 'I'll pay him a call.'

"'Seen your man?' asked d.i.c.k next evening, as we walked up towards the house, where again we were due for dinner.

"'I have just come from him: and what's more I have a proposition to make to Miss Felicia, if you and she can spare me an hour this evening.'

"The upshot of our talk was that, a week later, as I drove home from the station after my long railway journey, John Emmet sat by my side.

He had taken service with me as gardener, and for nine years he served me well. You'll hardly believe it"--here the Vicar's gaze travelled over the unkempt flower-beds--"but under John Emmet's hand this garden of mine was a picture. The fellow would have half a day's work done before the rest of the parish was out of bed. I never knew a human creature who needed less sleep--that's not the way to put it, though-- the man _couldn't_ sleep: he had lost the power (so he said) ever since the night the _Nerbuddha_ struck.

"So it was that every afternoon found the day's work ended in my garden, and John Emmet, in my sixteen-foot boat, exploring the currents and soundings about Menawhidden. And almost every day I went with him.

He had become a learner--for the third time in his life; and the quickest learner (in spite of his years) I have ever known, for his mind was bent on that single purpose. I should tell you that the Trinity House had discovered Menawhidden at last and placed the bell-buoy there --which is and always has been entirely useless: also that the Lifeboat Inst.i.tution had listened to some suggestions of mine and were re-organising the service down at the Porth. And it was now my hope that John Emmet might become c.o.xswain of the boat as soon as he had local knowledge to back up the seamanship and apt.i.tude for command in which I knew him to excel every man in the Porth. There were jealousies, of course: but he wrangled with no man, and in the end I had my way pretty easily. Within four years of his coming John Emmet knew more of Menawhidden than any man in the parish; possibly more than all the parish put together. And to-day the parish is proud of him and his record.

"But they do not know--and you are to be one of the four persons in the world who know--that _John Emmet was no other than John Murchison, the captain who lost the 'Nerbuddha'!_ He had come ash.o.r.e in the darkness some five minutes before I had surprised him on the beach: had come ash.o.r.e clinging to the keg which I saw floating just beyond the breakers. Then and there, stunned and confounded by the consequences of his carelessness, he had played the coward for the first and last time in his life. He had run away--and Heaven knows if in his shoes I should not have done the same. For two nights and a day a hideous fascination tied him to the spot. It was his face d.i.c.k had seen at the window.

The man had been hiding all day in the trench by the north wall of the churchyard; as d.i.c.k ran out with a lantern he slipped behind a gravestone, and when d.i.c.k gave up the search, he broke cover and fled inland. He changed his name: let this be his excuse, he had neither wife nor child. The man knew something of gardening: he had a couple of pounds and some odd shillings in his pocket--enough to take him to one of the big midland towns--Wolverhampton, I think--where he found work as a jobbing gardener. But something of the fascination which had held him lurking about Lansulyan, drove him to Cressingham, which--he learned from the newspaper accounts of the wreck--was Colonel Stanhope's country seat. Or perhaps he had some vague idea that Heaven would grant him a chance to make amends. You understand now how the little Felicia became his idol.

"At Lansulyan he had but two desires. The first was to live until he had saved as many lives as his carelessness had lost in the _Nerbuddha_.

For it was nothing worse, but mere forgetfulness to change the course: one of those dreadful lapses of memory which baffle all Board of Trade inquiry. You may light, and buoy, and beacon every danger along the coast, and still you leave that small kink in the skipper's brain which will cast away a ship for all your care. The second of his desires you have helped me to fulfil. He wished in death to be John Murchison again, and lie where his ship lies: lie with his grand error atoned for.

John Emmet needs no gravestone: for John Emmet lived but to earn John Murchison's right to a half-forgotten tablet describing him as a brave man. And I believe that Heaven, which does not count by tally, has granted his wish."

[1] Pilchard store.

ELISHA

A rough track--something between a footpath and a water course--led down the mountain-side through groves of evergreen oak, and reached the Plain of Jezreel at the point where the road from Samaria and the south divided into two--its main stem still climbing due north towards Nazareth, while the branch bent back eastward and by south across the flat, arable country to join the Carmel road at Megiddo.

An old man came painfully down the mountain-track. He wore a white burnoos, and a brown garment of camel's hair, with a leathern belt that girt it high about his bare legs. He carried a staff, and tapped the ground carefully before planting his feet. It was the time of barley harvest, and a scorching afternoon. On the burnt plain below, the road to Megiddo shone and quivered in the heat. But he could not see it.

Cataract veiled his eyes and blurred the whole landscape for them.

The track now wound about a foot-hill that broke away in a sharp slope on his right and plunged to a stony ravine. Once or twice he paused on its edge and peered downward, as if seeking for a landmark. He was leaning forward to peer again, but suddenly straightened his body and listened.

Far down in the valley a solitary dog howled. But the old man's ear had caught another sound, that came from the track, not far in front.

_Cling--cling--clink! Cling--clink!_

It was the sound of hammering; of stone on metal.

_Cling--cling--clink!_

He stepped forward briskly, rounded an angle of rock, and found himself face to face with a man--as well as he could see, a tall man--standing upright by a heap of stones on the left edge of the path.

"May it be well with you, my son: and with every man who repairs a path for the traveller. But tell me if the way be unsafe hereabouts? For my eyes are very dim, and it is now many years since last I came over the hills to Shunem."