The Vicar's People Part 94

"No--er."

"Here's Master Tregenna says he'll give us thirty poun' if we'll take him across to--"

"Hush!" cried Tregenna. "Yes, I'll give you thirty pounds, my men."

"There'll be quite a big storm directly," said another of the men.

"Thirty poun's a lot o' money, but life's more."

"Fifty, then. Here, fifty!" cried Tregenna, desperately. "Fifty pounds, if you start at once."

He took the crisp, rustling bank-notes from his pocket-book, and held them out, and it was too much for the men. They glanced at one another, and then their decision was made.

"Here, hand it over, and jump in," cried Tom Jennen; and, thrusting the notes into his pocket, he pointed to the boat, and no sooner had Tregenna leaped in than, shortening his hold of the line, he began to pull, while his mates handled their hitchers to set the lugger free.

Another minute, and Tom Jennen had leaped aboard, and they were hauling up one of the sails, which began to flap and fill. Then one of them ran to the tiller, the lugger gathered way, and rode round to the end of the pier, rising to the summit of a good-sized wave, and gliding down the other side, as a little mob of people came running down the pier, shouting to them to stop.

"Take no notice. Go on," cried Tregenna, excitedly.

"Why, what's the matter?" said Tom Jennen, who, like his companions, was in profound ignorance of the events that had taken place while they were away.

"Keep on, and get out to sea," cried Tregenna, fiercely. "I have paid you to take me, and you have the money."

"Stop that boat," roared old Prawle, who was now shouting and raving at the end of the pier. "Come back--come back."

"Don't listen to the old madman," cried Tregenna. "Haul up the other sail."

"We know how to manage our boat," said Jennen, sulkily; but he seized the rope, one of the others followed his example, and the second sail rose, caught the wind, and the lugger lay over and began to surge through the wares.

"Stop that boat! Murder!" shouted old Prawle, gesticulating furiously, while those who were with him waved their hands and shouted as well.

"Why, there's old Master Vorlea, the constable," said one of the men; "and he seems to have gone off his head, too. What's the matter ash.o.r.e, Master Tregenna?"

"Matter? I don't know," cried Tregenna, hoa.r.s.ely. "Keep on, and get me to Plymouth as quickly as you can."

"We'll try," said Tom Jennen; "but with this gashly storm a-coming on we'll never get out of the bay to-day."

"But you must," cried Tregenna, excitedly. "A man does not pay fifty pounds unless his business is urgent."

"Or he wants to get away," said Tom Jennen, surlily, as he looked back at the pier, now getting indistinct in the haze formed by the spray.

For the sea was rising fast, and as the fishers, who had made fast their boats within the harbour, joined the crowd staring after the lugger that had just put off, they shook their heads, and wondered what could have tempted Tom Jennen and his mates to go.

They were not long in learning that old Prawle had been after John Tregenna, charging him with the murder of the child, and the attempt to kill her he supposed to be its mother; but Tregenna seemed to have been seized by a horror of encountering Prawle, and he had fled as if for his life, while, with all the pertinacity of a bloodhound, the old man had tried to hunt him down, following him from place to place, where he sought for refuge, till, with the dread increasing in force, the guilty man had fled to the harbour, and, as the coach would not leave again till the next day, he had bribed the crew of the lugger to take him within reach of the railway.

As Prawle saw the boat get beyond his reach, he looked round for one to go in pursuit; and he turned to hurry back home, with the intent of putting off in his own, but as he did so his eyes swept the horizon, his life of experience told him what would follow, and he sat down upon one of the mooring posts with a low, hoa.r.s.e laugh.

"Does Tom Jennen think he's going to get out of the bay to-day?" he said.

"He'll have hard work," shouted the man nearest to him.

"Hard work? He'll be running for home ere two hours are gone, if his boat don't sink, for they've got Jonah on board yonder, and the sea's a-rising fast."

CHAPTER SIXTY.

THE LUGGER ASh.o.r.e.

By this time half the town was out to watch the lugger in which John Tregenna was trying to make his escape, and, the story of his wrong-doing having pa.s.sed from lip to lip, the crowd upon the harbour wall and the cliff began rapidly to increase.

Geoffrey heard of what had taken place, and hurried down to the cliff, and old Prawle was pointed out to him seated upon the pier, where the sea was already beginning to beat furiously as the wind rapidly gathered force.

"Why, Prawle," he cried, when he had hurried down to his side, "what have you been doing?"

"Doing, lad? Trying to do to him as he did to me and mine. He's got away," cried the old man, hoa.r.s.ely; "but I'll have him yet."

"Yes, but you must leave him to the law," cried Geoffrey. "Come: walk home with me. You must not take this into your own hands."

"Come home!" said the old man, with a fierce look in his eye. "Yes, when I have seen him drown, for it will come to that before many hours are past."

Finding him immovable, Geoffrey stayed by the old man's side till they were driven back to the head of the harbour by the waves that now dashed right over the wall where they had been standing but a few minutes before; and from thence Prawle, after some three hours' watching, climbed to the cliff, where he leaned over the iron rail and gazed out to sea through his hands, held telescope fashion.

"She's labouring hard," he said, with a grim chuckle, "and they've taken in all sail they can. Look yonder, Trethick: see. There, I told you so. Tom Jennen's give it up, and he'll run for the harbour now."

Geoffrey strained his eyes to try and make out what the old man had described; but he could only dimly see the two-masted vessel far out in the hazy spray, and that she was tossing up and down, for the sea was rising still, and the wind rapidly increasing to almost hurricane force.

Old Prawle was right, as the excitement upon the cliff showed, for, after hours of brave effort, the crew of the lugger had proved the hopelessness of their task, and were now running for home.

What had been a long and weary fight in the teeth of the wind resolved itself into quite a short run, with scarcely any sail hoisted, and the great white-topped waves seeming to chase the buoyant lugger as she raced for shelter from the storm.

The fishermen stood watching her through the haze, and shook their heads as they glanced down at the harbour, where the rocks were now bare, now covered by the huge waves that thundered amidst them, tossing the great boulders over and over as if they had been pebbles, and leaving them to rumble back with a noise like thunder, but only to be cast up again.

All the eastern side of the bay was now a sheet of white foam, which the wind caught up and sent flying inland like yeast; and so fierce was the wind now in its more furious gusts, that posts, corners, rocks, and the lee of boats were sought by the watchers as shelter from the cutting blast.

Old Prawle seemed to mind the furious gale no more than the softest breeze, and at length he descended the cliff slope towards where the waves came tumbling in a hundred yards or so beyond the end of the huge wall of masonry that formed the harbour; and as he saw the st.u.r.dy fishermen taking the same direction, with coils of rope over their shoulders, Geoffrey needed no telling that the lugger would come ash.o.r.e there, for, if expected to make the harbour, the men would have made no such preparations as these.

As they went down along the rugged slope Geoffrey touched the old man on the shoulder, and pointed to the harbour.

"No," shouted old Prawle, in his ear; "she can't do it, nor yet with three times her crew."

The crowd had rapidly increased, for it was known now that Tom Jennen's "boot" must be wrecked, and quite a hundred men had gathered on the sh.o.r.e ready to lend a hand to save. No vessel could have lived in the chaos of foam between them and the lugger unless it were the lifeboat, and that was seven miles away, while the lugger was now not as many hundred yards.

Through the dim haze Geoffrey could make out the figures of the men on board when the lugger rose to the top of some wave, but for the most part they were hidden from his sight; and as he stood there, drenched with the spray, he shuddered as he thought of the fate of these, now so full of vigour, if their seamanship should really prove unavailing to guide them into a place of safety.

"Is there danger, Trethick?" said a voice at his ear; and, turning, there stood the Reverend Edward Lee, his white face bedewed with the spray, and his gla.s.ses in his hand, as he wiped off the thick film of salt water.

"I fear so. Poor fellows!" was the reply.

"Is it true that that unhappy man is on board?"