Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts Part 10

"I spent three years at Tresillack, and all that while Mrs. Carkeek lived with me and shared the secret. Few women, I dare to say, were ever so completely wrapped around with love as we were during those three years. It ran through my waking life like a song: it smoothed my pillow, touched and made my table comely, in summer lifted the heads of the flowers as I pa.s.sed, and in winter watched the fire with me and kept it bright.

"'Why did I ever leave Tresillack?' Because one day, at the end of five years, Farmer Hosking brought me word that he had sold the house--or was about to sell it; I forget which. There was no avoiding it, at any rate; the purchaser being a Colonel Kendall, a brother of the old Squire.'

"'A married man?' I asked.

"'Yes, miss; with a family of eight. As pretty children as ever you see, and the mother a good lady. It's the old home to Colonel Kendall.'

"'I see. And that is why you feel bound to sell.'

"'It's a good price, too, that he offers. You mustn't think but I'm sorry enough--'

"'To turn me out? I thank you, Mr. Hosking; but you are doing the right thing.'

"Since Mrs. Carkeek was to stay, the arrangement lacked nothing of absolute perfection--except, perhaps, that it found no room for me.

"'_She_--Margaret-will be happy,' I said; 'with her cousins, you know.'

"'Oh yes, miss, she will be happy, sure enough,' Mrs. Carkeek agreed.

"So when the time came I packed up my boxes, and tried to be cheerful.

But on the last morning, when they stood corded in the hall, I sent Mrs.

Carkeek upstairs upon some poor excuse, and stepped alone into the pantry.

"'Margaret!' I whispered.

"There was no answer at all. I had scarcely dared to hope for one.

Yet I tried again, and, shutting my eyes this time, stretched out both hands and whispered:

"'Margaret!'

"And I will swear to my dying day that two little hands stole and rested--for a moment only--in mine."

THE LADY OF THE s.h.i.+P

[_Or so much as is told of her by Paschal Tonkin, steward and major-domo to the lamented John Milliton, of Pengersick Castle, in Cornwall: of her coming in the Portugal s.h.i.+p, anno 1526; her marriage with the said Milliton and alleged sorceries; with particulars of the Barbary men wrecked in Mount's Bay and their entertainment in the town of Market Jew._]

My purpose is to clear the memory of my late and dear Master; and to this end I shall tell the truth and the truth only, so far as I know it, admitting his faults, which, since he has taken them before G.o.d, no man should now aggravate by guess-work. That he had traffic with secret arts is certain; but I believe with no purpose but to fight the Devil with his own armoury. He never was a robber as Mr. Thomas St. Aubyn and Mr. William G.o.dolphin accused him; nor, as the vulgar pretended, a l.u.s.tful and b.l.o.o.d.y man. What he did was done in effort to save a woman's soul; as Jude tells us, "_Of some have compa.s.sion, that are in doubt; and others save, having mercy with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh_"--though this, alas!

my dear Master could not. And so with Jude I would end, praying for all of us and ascribing praise _to the only wise G.o.d, our Saviour, who is able to guard us from stumbling and set us faultless before His presence with exceeding joy_.

It was in January, 1526, after a tempest lasting three days, that the s.h.i.+p called the _Saint Andrew_, belonging to the King of Portugal, drove ash.o.r.e in Gunwallo Cove, a little to the southward of Pengersick.

She was bound from Flanders to Lisbon with a freight extraordinary rich--as I know after a fas.h.i.+on by my own eyesight, as well as from the inventory drawn up by Master Francis Porson, an Englishman, travelling on board of her as the King of Portugal's factor. I have a copy of it by me as I write, and here are some of Master Porson's items:--

8,000 cakes of copper, valued by him at 3,224 pounds.

18 blocks of silver, ' ' ' 2,250 '.

Silver vessels, plate, patens, ewers and pots, beside pearls, precious stones, and jewels of gold.

Also a chest of coined money, in amount 6,240 '.

There was also cloth of arras, tapestry, rich hangings, satins, velvets, silks, camlets, says, satins or Bruges, with great number of bales of Flemish and English cloth; 2,100 barber's basins; 3,200 laten candlesticks; a great chest of shalmers and other instruments of music; four sets of armour for the King of Portugal, much harness for his horses, and much beside--the whole amounting at the least computation to 16,000 pounds in value. [1] And this I can believe on confirmation of what I myself saw upon the beach.

But let me have done with Master Porson and his tale, which runs that the _Saint Andrew_, having struck at the mouth of the cove, there utterly perished; yet, by the grace and mercy of Almighty G.o.d, the greater part of the crew got safely to land, and by help of many poor folk dwelling in the neighbourhood saved all that was most valuable of the cargo. But shortly after (says he) there came on the scene three gentlemen, Thomas Saint Aubyn, William G.o.dolphin, and John Milliton, with about sixty men armed in manner of war with bows and swords, and made an a.s.sault on the s.h.i.+pwrecked sailors and put them in great fear and jeopardy; and in the end took from them all they had saved from the wreck, amounting to 10,000 pounds worth of treasure--"which," says he, "they will not yield up, nor make rest.i.tution, though they have been called upon to do so."

So much then for the factor's account, which I doubt not he believed to be true enough; albeit on his own confession he had lain hurt and unconscious upon the beach at the time, and his tale rested therefore on what he could learn by hearsay after his recovery; when--the matter being so important--he was at trouble to journey all the way to London and lay his complaint before the Portuguese amba.s.sador. Moreover he made so fair a case of it that the amba.s.sador obtained of the English Court a Commissioner, Sir Nicholas Fleming, to travel down and push enquiries on the spot--where Master Porson did not scruple to repeat his accusation, and to our faces (having indeed followed the Commissioner down for that purpose). I must say I thought him a very honest man--not to say a brave one, seeing what words he dared to use to Mr. Saint Aubyn in his own house at Clowance, calling him a mere robber. I was there when he said it and made me go hot and cold, knowing (if he did not) that for two pins Mr. Saint Aubyn might have had him drowned like a puppy. However, he chose to make nothing of an insult from a factor.

"_Mercator tantum,_" replied he, snapping his fingers, and to my great joy; for any violence might have spoiled the story agreed on between us--that is, between Mr. Saint Aubyn, Mr. G.o.dolphin, and me who acted as deputy for my Master.

This story of ours, albeit less honest, had more colour of the truth than Master Porson's hearsay. It ran that Mr. Saint Aubyn, happening near Gunwallo, heard of the wreck and rode to it, where presently Mr.

G.o.dolphin and my Master joined him and helped to save the men; that, in attempting to save the cargo also, a man of Mr. Saint Aubyn's--one Will Carnarthur--was drowned; that, in fact, very little was rescued; and, seeing the men dest.i.tute and without money to buy meat and drink, we bought the goods in lawful bargain with the master. As for the a.s.sault, we denied it, or that we took goods to the value of ten thousand pounds from the sailors. All that was certainly known to be saved amounted to about 20 pounds worth; and, in spite of many trials to recover more, which failed to pay the charges of labour, the bulk of the cargo remained in the s.h.i.+p and was broken up by the seas.

This was our tale, false in parts, yet a truer one than either of us, who uttered it, believed. The only person in the plot (so to say) who knew it to be true in substance was my Master. I, his deputy, took this version from him to Clowance with a mind glad enough to be relieved by my duty from having any opinion on the matter. On the one hand, I had the evidence of my senses that the booty had been saved, and too much wit to doubt that any other man would conclude it to be in my Master's possession. On the other, I had never known him lie or deceive, or engage me to further any deceit; his word was his bond, and by practice my word was his bond also. Further, of this affair I had already begun to wonder if a man's plain senses could be trusted, as you will hear reason by-and-by. As for Mr. Saint Aubyn and Mr. G.o.dolphin, they had no doubt at all that my Master was lying, and that I had come wittingly to further his lie. They would have drawn on him (I make no doubt) had he brought the tale in person. From me, his intermediate, they took it as the best to suit with the known truth and present to the Commissioner.

All Cornishmen are cousins, you may say. It comes to this, rather: these gentlemen chose to accept my master's lie, and settle with him afterwards, rather than make a clean breast and be forced to wring their small shares out of the Exchequer. A neighbour can be persuaded, terrified, forced; but London is always a long way off, and London lawyers are the devil. I say freely that (knowing no more than they did, or I) these two gentlemen followed a reasonable policy.

But, after we had fitted Sir Nicholas with our common story, and as I was mounting my horse in Clowance courtyard, Mr. Saint Aubyn came close to my stirrup and said this by way of parting:

"You will understand, Mr. Tonkin, that to-day's tale is for to-day.

But by G.o.d I will come and take my share--you may tell your master--and a trifle over! And the next time I overtake you I promise to put a bullet in the back of your scrag neck."

For answer to this--seeing that Master Porson stood at an easy distance with his eye on us--I saluted him gravely and rode out of the courtyard.

Now the manner of the wreck was this, and our concern with it.

So nearly as I can learn, the _Saint Andrew_ came ash.o.r.e at two hours after noon: the date, the 20th of January, 1526, and the weather at the time coa.r.s.e and foggy with a gale yet blowing from the south-west or a good west of south, but sensibly abating, and the tide wanting an hour before low water.

It happened that Mr. Saint Aubyn was riding, with twenty men at his back, homeward from Gweek, where he had spent three days on some private business, when he heard news of the wreck at a farmhouse on the road to h.e.l.leston: and so turning aside, he, whose dwelling lay farthest from it, came first to the cove. The news reached us at Pengersick a little after three o'clock; as I remember because my Master was just then settled to dinner. But he rose at once and gave word to saddle in haste, at the same time bidding me make ready to ride with him, and fifteen others.

So we set forth and rode--the wind lulling, but the rain coming down steadily--and reached Gunwallo Cove with a little daylight to spare.

On the beach there we found most of the foreigners landed, but seven of them laid out starkly, who had been drowned or brought ash.o.r.e dead (for the yard had fallen on board, the day before, and no time left in the s.h.i.+p's extremity to bury them): and three as good as dead--among whom was Master Porson, with a great wound of the scalp; also everywhere great piles of freight, chests, bales, and casks--a few staved and taking damage from salt water and rain, but the most in apparent good condition. The crew had worked very busily at the salving, and to the great credit of men who had come through suffering and peril of death.

Mr. Saint Aubyn's band, too, had lent help, though by this time the flowing of the tide forced them to give over. But the master (as one might say) of their endeavours was neither the Portuguese captain nor Mr. Saint Aubyn, but a young damsel whom I must describe more particularly.

She was standing, as we rode down the beach, nigh to the water's edge; with a group of men about her, and Mr. Saint Aubyn himself listening to her orders. I can see her now as she turned at our approaching and she and my Master looked for the first time into each other's eyes, which afterwards were to look so often and fondly. In age she appeared eighteen or twenty; her shape a mere girl's, but her face somewhat older, being pinched and peaked by the cold, yet the loveliest I have ever seen or shall see. Her hair, which seemed of a copper red, darkened by rain, was blown about her shoulders, and her drenched blue gown, hitched at the waist with a snakeskin girdle, flapped about her as she turned to one or the other, using more play of hands than our home-bred ladies do. Her feet were bare and rosy; ruddied doubtless, by the wind and brine, but I think partly also by the angry light of the sunsetting which broke the weather to seaward and turned the pools and the wetted sand to the colour of blood. A hound kept beside her, s.h.i.+vering and now and then lowering his muzzle to sniff the oreweed, as if the brine of it puzzled him: a beast in shape somewhat like our grey-hounds, but longer and taller, and coated like a wolf.

As I have tried to describe her she stood amid the men and the tangle of the beach; a shape majestical and yet (as we drew closer) slight and forlorn. The present cause of her gestures we made out to be a dark-skinned fellow whom two of Saint Aubyn's men held prisoner with his arms trussed behind him. On her other hand were gathered the rest of the Portuguese, very sullen and with dark looks whenever she turned from them to Saint Aubyn and from their language to the English. He, I could see, was perplexed, and stood fingering his beard: but his face brightened as he came a step to meet my Master.

"Ha!" said he, "you can help us, Milliton. You speak the Portuguese, I believe?" (For my master was known to speak most of the languages of Europe, having caught them up in his youth when his father's madness forced him abroad. And I myself, who had accompanied him so far as Venice, could pick my way in the _lingua Franca_.) "This fellow"-- pointing at the prisoner--"has just drawn a knife on the lady here; and indeed would have killed her, but for this hound of hers. My fellows have him tight and safe, as you see: but I was thinking by your leave to lodge him with you, yours being the nearest house for the safe keeping of such. But the plague is," says he, "there seems to be more in the business than I can fathom: for one half of these drenched villains take the man's part, while scarce one of them seems too well disposed towards the lady: although to my knowledge she has worked more than any ten of them in salving the cargo. And heaven help me if I can understand a word of their chatter!"

My Master lifted his cap to her; and she lifted her eyes to him, but never a word did she utter, though but a moment since she had been using excellent English. Only she stood, slight and helpless and (I swear) most pitiful, as one saying, "Here is my judge. I am content."

My Master turned to the prisoner and questioned him in the Portuguese.

But the fellow (a man taller than the rest and pa.s.sably straight-looking) would confess nothing but that his name was Gil Perez of Lagos, the boatswain of the wrecked s.h.i.+p. Questioned of the a.s.sault, he shook his head merely and shrugged his shoulders. His face was white: it seemed to me unaccountably, until glancing down I took note of a torn wound above his right knee on the inside, where the hound's teeth had fastened.

"But who is the captain of the s.h.i.+p?" my Master demanded in Portuguese; and they thrust forward a small man who seemed not over-willing.

Indeed his face had nothing to commend him, being sharp and yellow, with small eyes set too near against the nose.

"Your name?" my Master demanded of him too.

"Affonzo Cabral," he answered, and plunged into a long tale of the loss of his s.h.i.+p and how it happened. Cut short in this and asked concerning the lady, he shrugged his shoulders and replied with an oath he knew nothing about her beyond this, that she had taken pa.s.sage with him at Dunquerque for Lisbon, paying him beforehand and bearing him a letter from the Bishop of Cambrai, which conveyed to him that she was bound on some secret mission of politics to the Court of Lisbon.