The Ship of Stars Part 10

CHAPTER X.

A HAPPY DAY.

A volley of sand darkened and shook the pane. Taffy, sponging himself in his tub and singing between his gasps, looked up hastily, then flung a big towel about him and ran to the window.

Honoria was standing below; and Comedy, her gray pony, with a creel and a couple of fishing rods strapped to his canvas girth.

"Wake up! I've come to take you fishing."

Mr. Raymond had started off at daybreak to walk to Truro on business; so there would be no lessons that morning, and Taffy had been looking forward to a lonely whole holiday.

"I've brought two pasties," said Honoria, "and a bottle of milk.

We'll go over to George's country and catch trout. He is to meet us at Vellingey Bridge. We arranged it all yesterday, only I kept it for a surprise."

Taffy could have leapt for joy. "Go in and speak to mother," he said; "she's in the kitchen."

Honoria hitched Comedy's bridle over the gate, walked up the barren little garden, and knocked at the door. When Mrs. Raymond opened it she held out a hand politely.

"How do you do?" she said, "I have come to ask if Taffy may go fishing with me."

Except in church, and outside the porch for a formal word or two, Humility and Honoria had never met. This was Honoria's first visit to the Parsonage, and the sight of the clean kitchen and shining pots and pans filled her with wonder. Humility shook hands and made a silent note of the child's frock, which was torn and wanted brushing.

"He may go, and thank you. It's lonely for him here, very often."

"I suppose," said Honoria gravely, "I ought to have called before.

I wish--" She was about to say that she wished Humility would come to Tredinnis. But her eyes wandered to the orderly dresser and the scalding-pans by the fireplace.

"I mean--if Taffy had a sister it would be different."

Humility bent to lift a kettle off the fire. When she faced round again, her eyes were smiling though her lip trembled a little.

"How bright you keep everything here!" said Honoria.

"There's plenty of sand to scour with; it's bad for the garden though."

"Don't you grow any flowers?"

"I planted a few pansies the first year; they came from my home up in Devonshire. But the sand covered them. It covers everything."

She smiled, and asked suddenly, "May I kiss you?"

"Of course you may," said Honoria. But she blushed as Humility did it, and they both laughed shyly.

"Hullo!" cried Taffy from the foot of the stairs. Honoria moved to the window. She heard the boy and his mother laughing and making pretence to quarrel, while he chose the brownest of the hot cakes from the wood-ashes. She stared out upon Humility's buried pansies.

It was strange--a minute back she had felt quite happy.

Humility set them off, and watched them till they disappeared in the first dip of the towans; and then sat down in the empty kitchen and wept a little before carrying up her mother's breakfast.

Honoria rode in silence for the first mile; but Taffy sang and whistled by turns as he skipped alongside. The whole world flashed and glittered around the boy and girl; the white gulls fishing, the swallows chasing one another across the dunes, the lighthouse on the distant spit, the white-washed mine-chimneys on the ridge beside the sh.o.r.e. Away on the rises of the moor one hill-farm laughed to another in a steady flame of furze blossom--laughed with a tinkling of singing larks. And beyond the last rise lay the land of wonders, George's country. "Hark!" Honoria reined up. "Isn't that the cuckoo?" Taffy listened. Yes, somewhere among the hillocks seaward its note was dinning.

"Count!"

"Cuckoo, cherry-tree, Be a good bird and tell to me How many years before I die?"

"Ninety-six!" Taffy announced.

"Ninety-two," said Honoria, "but we won't quarrel about it.

Happy month to you!"

"Eh?"

"It is the first of May. Come along; perhaps we shall meet the Mayers, though we're too late, I expect. Hullo! there's a miner-- let's ask him."

The miner came upon them suddenly--footsteps make no sound among the towans; a young man in a suit stained orange-tawny, with a tallow candle stuck with a lump of clay in the brim of his hat, and a striped tulip stuck in another lump of clay at the back and nodding.

"Good-morning, miss. You've come a day behind the fair."

"Is the Maying over?" Honoria asked.

"Iss, fay. I've just been home to shift myself."

He walked along with them and told them all about it in the friendliest manner. It had been a grand Maying--all the boys and girls in the parish--with the hal-an-tow, of course--such dancing!

Fine and tired some of the maids must be--he wouldn't give much for the work they'd do to-day. Two May mornings in one year would make a gra.s.s-captain mad, as the saying was. But there--'twas a poor spirit that never rejoiced.

"Which do you belong to?" Taffy nodded toward the mine-chimneys on the sky-line high on their left, which hid the sea, though it lay less than half a mile away and the roar of it was in their ears--just such a roar as the train makes when rushing through a tunnel.

"Bless you, I'm a tinner. I belong to Wheal Gooniver, up the valley.

Wheal Vlo there, 'pon the cliff, he's lead. And the next to him, Wheal Penhale, he's iron. I came a bit out of my way with you for company."

Soon after parting from him they crossed the valley-stream (Taffy had to wade it), and here they happened on a dozen tall girls at work "spalling" the tin-ore, but not busy. The most of them leaned on their hammers or stood with hands on hips, their laughter drowning the _thud, thud_ of the engine-house and the rattle of the stamps up the valley. And the cause of it all seemed to be a smaller girl who stood by with a basket in her arms.

"Here you be, Lizzie!" cried one. "Here's a young lady and gentleman coming with money in their pockets."

Lizzie turned. She was a child of fourteen, perhaps; brown skinned, with shy, wild eyes. Her stockings were torn, her ragged clothes decorated with limp bunches of bluebells, and her neck and wrists with twisted daisy chains. She skipped up to Honoria and held out a basket. Within it, in a bed of fern, lay a May-doll among a few birds' eggs--a poor wooden thing in a single garment of pink calico.

"Give me something for my doll, miss!" she begged.

"Aw, that's too tame," one of the girls called out, and pitched her voice to the true beggar's whine: "Spare a copper! My only child, dear kind lady, and its only father broke his tender neck in a blasting accident, and left me twelve to maintain!"

All the girls began laughing again. Honoria did not laugh. She was feeling in her pocket.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Lizzie Pezzack. My father tends the lighthouse. Give me something for my doll, miss!"

Honoria held out a half-crown piece.