The Wooden Horse Part 9

"Germany? It was Paradise, Heaven--what you will. Rugen, the Harz, Heidelberg, Worms----" He stopped and his voice broke. "I'm a little absurd about it still," he said, as though in apology for such unnecessary enthusiasm.

"Oh! you're young, Robin," said Randal, laughing. "When you've seen as much as I have you'll be blase. Not that one ought to be, but Germany--well, it hardly lasts, I think. Rugen--why, it rained and there were mists round the Studenkammer, and how those people eat at the Jagdschloss! Heidelberg! picture postcards and shocking hotels--Oh! No, Robin, you'll see all that later. I wish you were going instead of me, though."

Harry had looked up at the sound of Robin's voice. It had been a new note. There had been an eagerness, an enthusiasm, that meant life and something genuine.

Hope that had been slowly dying revived again. If Robin really cared for Germany like that, then they had something in common. With that spark a fire might be kindled. A red-gold haze as of fire burnt in the night sky, over the town. Stars danced overhead, a little wind, beating fitfully at the window, seemed to carry the light of the moon in its tempestuous track, blowing it lightly in silver mists and clouds over the moor. The Wise Men were there, strong and dark and sombre, watching over the lighted town and listening patiently to the ripple and murmur and life of the sea at their feet. In the little inn at the Cove men were sitting over the roaring fire, telling tales--strange, weird stories of a life that these others did not know. Harry had heard them when he was a boy--those stories--and he had felt the spell and the magic. There had been life in them and romance.

Perhaps they were there again to-night, just as they had been twenty years before. The stars called to him, the lighted town, the dusky, softly breathing sea, the loneliness of the moor. He must get out and away. He must have sympathy and warmth and friendship; he had come back to his own people with open arms and they had no place for him.

His own son had repulsed him. But Cornwall, the country of his dreams, the mother of his faith, the guardian of his honour, was there--the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He would search for her and would find her--even though it were on the red-brick floor of the tavern in the Cove.

He turned round and found that the room was empty. They had forgotten him and left him--without a word. The light of the lamp caught the silver of the tea-things, and flashed and sparkled like a flame.

Harry Trojan softly opened the door, pa.s.sed into the dim twilight of the hall, picked up his hat, and stepped into the garden.

CHAPTER V

As he felt the crunch of the gravel beneath his feet he was possessed with the spirit of adventure. The dark house behind him had been holding him captive. It had held him against his will, imprisoning him, tormenting him, and the tortures that he had endured were many and severe. He had not known that he could have felt it so much--that absolute rejection of him by everything in which he had trusted; but he would mind these things no longer--he would even try not to mind Robin!

That would be hard, and as he thought of it even now for a moment tears had filled his eyes. That, however, was cowardice. He must fling away the hopes of twenty years and start afresh, with the knowledge won of his experience and the strength that he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from his wounds.

And after all a man was a fool to mope and whine when that wind from the sea was beating in his ears and the sea scents of clover and poppies and salt stinging foam were brought to his nostrils, and the trees rustled like the beating of birds' wings in the velvety star-lighted sky.

A garden was wonderful at night--a place of strange silences and yet stranger sound: trees darkly guarding mysterious paths that ran into caverns of darkness; the scents of flowers rising from damp earth heavy with dew; flowers that were weary with the dust and noise of the day and slept gently, gratefully, with their heads drooping to the soil, their petals closed by the tender hands of the spirits of the garden.

The night-sounds were strangely musical. Cries that were discordant in the day mingled now with the running of distant water, the last notes of some bird before it slept, the measured harmony of a far-away bell, the gentle rustle of some arrival in the thickets; the voice that could not be heard in the noisy chatter of the day rose softly now in a little song of the night and the dark trees and the silver firelight of the stars.

And it was all very romantic, of course. Harry Trojan had flung his cares behind him and stepped over the soft turf of the lawns, a free adventurer. It was not really very late, and there was an hour before dinner; but he was not sure that he minded about that--they would be glad to dine without him. There crossed his mind the memory of a night in New Zealand. He had been walking down to the harbour in Auckland, and the moon had shone in the crooked water-side streets, its white, cold light crossed with dark black shadows of roofs and gables.

Suddenly a woman's voice called for help across the silence, and he had turned and listened. It had called again, and, thinking that he might help some one in distress, he had burst a dark, silent door, stumbled up crooked wooden stairs, and entered an empty room. As he pa.s.sed the door there was a sound of skirts, and a door at the other end of the room had closed. There was no one there, only a candle guttering on the table, the remains of a meal, a woman's hat on the back of a chair; he had waited for some time in silence, he had called and asked if there was any one there, he had tried the farther door and found it shut--and so, cursing himself for a fool, he had pa.s.sed down into the street again and the episode had ended. There was really nothing in it--nothing at all; but it was the atmosphere, the atmosphere of romantic adventure shot suddenly across a rather drab and colourless existence, and he had liked to dwell on the possibilities of the affair and ask himself about it. Who was the woman, and why had she cried out? Why was there no one in the room? And why had no one answered him?

He did not know and really he did not care, and, indeed, it was better that the affair should be left in vague and incomplete outline. It was probably commonplace enough, had one only known, and sordid too, perhaps. But to-night was just such a night as that other. He would go to the Cove and find his romance where he had left it twenty years ago. It was the hour in Pendragon when shops are closing and young men and maidens walk out. There were a great many people in the street; girls with white, tired faces, young men with bright ties and a self-a.s.sertive air--a type of person new to Pendragon since Harry's day. The young man who served you respectfully, almost timidly, behind the counter was now self-a.s.sertive, taking the middle of the street with a flourish of his cane. Fragments of conversation came to Harry's ears--

"Mother being out I thought as 'ow I might venture--not but what she'd kick up a rare old fuss----"

"So I told 'er it weren't no business of 'ers and the sooner she caught on to the idea the better for all parties, seein' as 'ow----"

"Well, I never did! and you told 'im that, did yer? I always said you'd some pluck if you really wanted to----"

A gramophone from an open window up the street shrieked the alluring refrain of "She's a different girl again," and a man who had established himself at the corner under the protecting glare of two hissing gas-jets urged on the company present an immediate acceptance of his stupendous offer. "Gold watches for 'alf a crown--positively for one evening in order to clear--all above board. Solid gold and cheap at a sovereign."

The plunge into the cool depths of the winding little path that led down to the Cove was delicious. Oh! the contrast of it! The noise and ugly self-a.s.sertion of the town, flinging its gas-jets against the moon and covering the roll of the sea with the shriek of the gramophone. He crossed through the turnstile at the bend of the road and pa.s.sed up the hill that led to the Cove. At a bend the view of the sea came to him, the white moonlight lying, a path of dancing shining silver, on the grey sweep of the sea. A wind was blowing, turning the grey into sudden points of white--like ghostly hands rising for a moment suddenly from immensity and then sinking silently again, their prayers unanswered.

As he pa.s.sed up the hill he was aware of something pattering beside him; at first it was a little uncanny in that dim, uncertain light, and he stopped and bent down to the road. It was a dog, a fox-terrier of a kind, dirty, and even in that light most obviously a mongrel. But it jumped up at him and put its paws on his knee.

"Well, company's company," he said with a laugh. "I don't know where you've sprung from, but we'll travel together for a bit." The dog ran up the hill, and for a moment stood out against the moon--a s.h.a.ggy, disreputable dog with a humorous stump of a tail. He stood there with one ear flapping back and the other c.o.c.ked up--a most ridiculous figure.

Harry laughed again and the dog barked; they walked down the hill together.

The Cove was dark, but from behind shuttered windows lamps twinkled mysteriously, and the red glow from the inn flung a circle of light down the little cobbled street. The beat of the sea came solemnly like the tramp of invisible armies from the distance. There was no other sound save the tremble of the wind in the trees.

Harry pushed open the door of the inn and entered, followed by the dog.

The place was the same; nothing had been changed. There was the old wooden gallery where the fiddle had played such merry tunes. The rough uneven floor had the same holes, the same hills and dales. The great settle by the fire was marked, as in former years, with mysterious crosses and initials cut by jack-knives in olden days. The two lamps shone in their accustomed places--one over the fire, another by the window. The door leading to the bar was half open, and in the distance voices could be heard, but the room itself seemed to be empty.

A great fire leapt in the fireplace and the gold light of it danced on the red-brick floor. The peculiar scent as of tobacco and ale and the salt of the sea, and, faintly, the breath of mignonette and geraniums, struck out the long intervals since Harry had been there before.

Twenty years ago he had breathed the same air; and now he was back there again and nothing was changed. The dog had run to the fire and sat in front of it now, wagging his stump of a tail, his ear c.o.c.ked.

Harry laughed and sat down in the settle; the burden of the last week was flung off and he was a free man.

A long, lean man with a straggling beard stood in the doorway and watched him; then he came forward. "Mr. Harry," he said, and held out his hand.

Harry started up. "I'm sorry," he said, stammering, "I don't remember."

"We were wonderin'," said the long, thin man slowly, "when you was comin' down. Not that you'd remember faces--that's not to be expected--especially in foreign parts which is confusing and difficult for a man--but I'm Bill Tregarvis what have had you out fishin' many's the time--not that you'd remember faces," he said again, looking a little timidly at him.

But he did! Harry remembered him perfectly! Bill Tregarvis! Why, of course--many was the time they had seen life together--he had had a wife and two boys.

Harry wrung his hand and laughed.

"Remember, Bill! Why, of course! It was only for a moment. I had got the face all right but not the name. Yes, I have, as a matter of fact, come before, but there were things that have made it difficult at first, and of course there was a lot to do up there. But it's good to be down here! The other place is changed; I had been a bit disappointed, but here it is just the same--the same old lights and smells and sea, and the same old friends----"

"Yer think that?" Tregarvis looked at him. "Because we'd been fearing that all your travelling and sight-seeing might have harmed you--that you'd be thinking a bit like the folk up-along with their cars and gas and filth. Aye, it's a changed world up there, Mr. Harry; but down-along there's no difference. It's the sea keeps us steady."

And then they talked about the old adventurous days when Harry had been eighteen and the world had been a very wonderful place: the herring fishing, the bathing, the adventures on the moor, the tales at night by candlelight, the fun of it all. The room began to fill, and one after another men came forward and claimed friendship on the score of old days and perils shared. They received him quite simply--he was "Mr.

Harry," but still one of themselves, taking his place with them, telling tales and hearing them in return.

There were nine or ten of them, and a wild company they made, crowding round the fire, with the flames leaping and flinging gigantic shadows on the walls. The landlord, a short, ruddy-faced man with white hair and a merry twinkle of the eye, was one of the best men that Harry had ever known.

He was a man whose modesty was only equalled by his charity; a man of great humour, wide knowledge of the most varied subjects, and above all a pa.s.sionate faith in the country of his birth, Cornwall. He was, like most Cornishmen, superst.i.tious, but his belief in Nature as a wise and beneficent mother, stern but never unjust, controlled his will and justified his actions. In those early days Harry had worshipped him with that whole-hearted adoration bestowed at times by young hero-worshippers on those that have travelled a little way along the path and have learnt their lesson wisely. Tony Newsome's influence had done more for Harry in those early years than he had realised, but he knew now what he owed to him as he sat by his side and recalled those other days. They had written once or twice, but Tony was no correspondent and hated to have a pen between his fingers.

"Drive a horse, pull a boat, shoot a gun, mind a net--but G.o.d help me if I write," he had said. Not that he objected to books; he had read a good deal and cared for it--but "G.o.d's air in the day and a merry fire at night leaves little room for pen and ink" was his justification.

He treated Harry now as his boy of twenty years ago, and laughed at him and scolded him as of old. He did not question him very closely on the incidents of those twenty years, and indeed, with them all, Harry noticed that there was very little curiosity as to those other countries. They welcomed him quietly, simply. They were glad that he was there again, sitting with them, taking his place naturally and easily--and again the twenty years seemed as nothing.

He sat with the dog at his feet. Newsome's hand was on his knee, and every once and again he gave a smothered chuckle. "I knew you'd come back, Mr. Harry," he said. "I just waited. Once the sea has got hold of you it doesn't loosen its grip so quick. I knew you'd come back."

They told wild stories as they had been telling them for many years at the same hour in the same place--strange things seen at sea, the lights and mists of the moor, survivals of smuggling days and fights on the beach under the moon; and it always was the sea. They might leave it for a moment perhaps, but they came back to it--the terror of it, the joy of it, the cruelty of it; the mistress that held them chained, that called their children and would not be denied, the G.o.d that they served.

They spoke of her softly with lowered voices and a strange reverence.

They had learnt her moods and her dangers; they knew that she could caress them, and then, of a sudden, strike them down--but they loved her.

And she had claimed Harry again. Everything for which he had been longing during that past week had come to him at last; their friendship, their faith in an old G.o.d, and above all that sense of a great adventure, for the spirit of which he had so diligently been searching. "Up-along" life was an affair of measured rules and things foreseen. "Down-along" it was a game of unending surprises and a gossamer web shot with the golden light of romance. High-falutin perhaps, but to Harry, as he sat before the fire with the strange dog and those ten wild men, words and pictures came too speedily to admit of a sense of the absurd.

An old man, with a long white beard and a shaking hand, knew strange tales of the moor. When the mists creep up and blot out the land, then the four grey stones take life and are the giants of old, and strange sacrifices are grimly performed. Talse Carlyon had seen things late on a moonlit night with the mists swimming white and silvery-grey over the moor. He had lost his way and had met a man of mighty size who had led him by the hand. There had been spirits about, and at the foot of the grey stone a pool of blood--he had never been the same man since.

"There are spirits and spirits," said the old man solemnly, "and there 'm some good and some bad, for the proper edification of us mortals, and, for my part, it's not for the like of us to meddle."

He stroked his beard--a very gloomy old man with a blind eye. Harry remembered that he had had a wife twenty years before, so he inquired about her.

"Dead," said the old man fiercely, "dead--and, thank G.o.d, she went out like a candle."