Lying Prophets Part 37

Mary Chirgwin did not return to Newlyn after making inquiries at Penzance.

There indeed she learned one fact which might prove important, but the possibilities to be read from it were various. Joan had been at the Penzance railway station, and chance made Mary question the identical porter who had studied the timetable for her cousin.

"She was anxious 'bout the Lunnon trains an' tawld me she was travelin' up to town to-morrow," explained the man. "I weer 'pon the lookout this marnin', but she dedn' come again."

"What time did you see her last night?"

"'Bout nine or earlier. I mind the time 'cause the storm burst not so very long arter, an' I wondered if the gal had got to her home."

"No, she didn't. Might she have gone by any other train?"

"She might, but I'm everywheers, an' 'tedn' likely as I shouldn't have seed her."

This much Mary heard, and then went home. Her news made Mr. Chirgwin very anxious, for supposing that Joan had returned from Penzance on the previous evening, or attempted to do so, it was probable that she had been in the lowest part of the valley, at or near Buryas Bridge, about the time of the flood. The waters still ran high, but Uncle Thomas sent out search parties through the afternoon of that day, and himself plodded not a few miles in the lower part of the coomb.

Meantime the truth must be stated. On the night of the storm Joan had gone to Penzance, ascertained the first train which she could catch next day, and then returned as quickly as she could toward Drift. But at Buryas Bridge she remembered that her uncle was in the coomb with the farm hands, and might be there all night. It was necessary that he should know her intentions and direct her in several particulars. A farm vehicle must also be ordered, for Joan would have to leave the farm at a very early hour.

Strung to a tension of nerves above all power of fatigue, in a whirl of excitement and wholly heedless of the mysterious nocturnal conditions around her, Joan determined to seek Uncle Thomas directly, and with that intention, instead of climbing the hill to Drift and so placing herself in a position of safety, pa.s.sed the smithy and cots which lie by Buryas Bridge and prepared to ascend the coomb in this fas.h.i.+on and so reach her friends the quicker. She knew her road blindfold, but was quite ignorant of the altered character of the stream. Joan had not, however, traveled above a quarter of a mile through the orchard lands when she began to realize the difficulties. Once well out of the orchards, she believed that the meadows would offer an easier path, and thus, buried in her own thoughts, proceeded with many stumblings and splas.h.i.+ngs over the wet gra.s.ses and earth, under a darkness that made progress very slow despite her familiarity with the way.

Then it was that, deep hidden in the night and all alone, where the stream ran into a pool above big bowlders which banked it--at the spot, indeed, where she had reigned over the milky meadowsweets seated on a granite throne--the vibrating thread of Joan Tregenza's little life was sharply severed and she died with none to see or hear, in that tumult of rising waters which splashed and gurgled and rose on the skirts of the coming storm. A pathway ran here at the edge of the river, and the girl stepped upon it to find the swollen current suddenly up to her knees. Bewildered she turned, slipped, turned again, and then, under the impression that she faced toward the meadow-bank, put up her hands to grapple safety, set her foot forward and, in a moment, was drowning. Distant not half a mile, laboring like giants to save a thing far less precious than this life, toiled Uncle Thomas and his men. Had silence prevailed among them the single cry which echoed up the valley might well have reached their ears; but all were laboring amain, and Joan was at that moment the last thought in the minds of any among them.

So she died; for the gathering waters soon beat out her life and silenced her feeble struggle to save it. A short agony ended the nine months of experience through which Joan's life has been followed; her fires were quenched, and that most roughly; her fears, hopes, sorrows, joys were all swept away; and Nature stood defeated by herself, to see a young life strangled on the threshold of motherhood, and an infant being drowned so near to birth that its small heart had already begun to beat.

Two men, tramping through the desolation of the ruined valley at Uncle Chirgwin's command, discovered Joan's body. The elder was Amos Bartlett, and he fell back a step at the spectacle with a sorrowful oath on his lip; the younger searcher turned white and showed fear. The dead girl lay on her back, so left by the water. Her dress had been caught between two great bowlders near the pool of her drowning and the flood had thus caused her no injury.

"G.o.d's goodness! how comed she here!" cried out Bartlett. "Oh, but this'll be black news--black news; an' her brother drowned at sea likewise! Theer's a hidden meanin' in it, I lay, if us awnly knawed." The lad who accompanied Bartlett was shaking, and did not dare to look at the still figure which lay so stiff and straight at their feet. Amos therefore bid him use his legs, hasten to the farm, break the news, and dispatch a couple of men to the coomb.

"I can pull up a hurdle an' wattle it with withys meantime," he said; "for 'tis allus well to have work for the hand in such a pa.s.s as this. Ban't no good for me to sit an' look at her, poor fond wummon."

He busied himself with the hurdle accordingly, and when two of the hands presently came down from Drift they found their burden ready for them.

The old, silent man called Gaffer Polglaze found sufficient excitement in the tragedy to loosen a tongue which seldom wagged. He spat on his hands and rubbed them together before seizing his end of the hurdle. Then he spoke:

"My stars! to see maaster when he heard! He rolled all about as if he was drunk. An' yet 'tis the bestest thing as could fall 'pon the gal. 'Er was lookin' for the cheel in a month or so, they do say. Poor sawl--so cold as a quilkin [Footnote: _Quilkin_--A frog.] now, and the unborn baaby tu." Then Mr. Bartlett answered:

"The unhappy creature was fine an' emperent to me 'bout a matter o'

drownin' chets in the spring. Yet here she'm drowned herself sure 'nough.

Well, well, G.o.d's will be done."

"'Tis coorious, to be sure, how bazzomy [Footnote: _Bazzomy_--Blue or livid.] a corpse do get 'bout the faace arter a water death," said the first speaker, regarding the dead with frank interest.

"Her eyes do make me wimbly-wambly in the stomach," declared the second laborer; "when you've done talkin', Gaffer Polglaze, us'll go up-long, an'

the sooner the better."

"Butivul eyes, tu, they was--wance. Sky-color an' no less. What I'm wonderin' is as to however she comed here 'tall."

"Piskey-led, I'll warrant 'e," said the ancient.

"Nay, man-led, which is worse. You mind that printed envelope us found in the kitchen. 'Twas some dark doin' of that anointed vellun as brot her in trouble. Ay, an' if I could do en a graave hurt I would, Methodist or no Methodist."

"He'm away," answered Bartlett. "'Tedn' no call for you nor yet me to meddle wi' the devil's awn business. The man'll roast for't when his time do come. You'd best to take your coats off an' cover this poor clay, lest the wummen should catch a sight an' go soundin'."

They did as he bid them, and Mr. Bartlett laid his own coat upon the body likewise. Then slowly up the hill they pa.s.sed, and rested now and again above the steep places.

"A wisht home-comin' as ever a body heard tell on," commented Gaffer Polglaze; "an' yet the Lard's good pleasure's allus right if you lives long enough to look back an' see how things was from His bird's-eye view of 'em.

A tidy skuat [Footnote: Windfall, legacy.] o' money tu they tells me. Who Be gwaine to come by that?"

"Her give it under hand an' seal to her brother."

"Theer's another 'mazin' thing for 'e! Him drownded in salt an' her in frais.h.!.+ We lives in coorious times to be sure, an' theer's more in such happenings than meets the eye."

"Bear yourself more sorrow-stricken, Gaffer. Us be in sight of the house."

Mary Chirgwin met the mournful train, directed them to bring the body of Joan into the parlor where a place was prepared for it, and then turned to Bartlett. She was trembling and very pale for one of her complexion, but the woman's self-command had not left her.

"The auld man's like wan daft," she said hurriedly. "He must be doin', so he rushed away to Newlyn to tell 'em theer. He ban't himself 'tall. You'd best to go arter en now this minute. An' theer's things to be done in Penzance--the doctor an' the crowner an'--an' the coffin-maker. Do what you can to take trouble off the auld man."

"Get me my coat an' I'll go straight 'way. 'Tis thrawed awver the poor faace of her."

Two minutes later Mr. Bartlett followed his master, but Uncle Chirgwin had taken a considerable start of him. The old man was terribly shocked to hear the news, for he had clung to a theory that Joan was long since in London.

Dread and fear came over him. The thought of facing this particular corpse was more than he could contemplate with self-control. A great nervous terror mingled with his grief. He wished to avoid the return from the valley, and the first excuse for so doing which came to his mind he hurriedly acted upon. He declared it essential that the Tregenzas should be told instantly, and hastened away before Mary could argue with him. Only that morning they had heard of Gray Michael's condition, but Uncle Chirgwin forgot it when the blasting news of his niece's death fell upon him. He hurried snuffling and weeping along as fast as his legs would bear him, and not until he stood at their cottage door did he recollect the calamities which had overtaken the fisherman and those of his household.

Uncle Chirgwin began to speak hastily the moment Mrs. Tregenza opened the door. He choked and gurgled over his news.

"She'm dead--Joan. They've found her in the brook as the waters went down.

Drownded theer--the awnly suns.h.i.+ne as ever smiled at Drift. Oh, my good G.o.d!--'tis a miz-maze to drive us all out of our senses. An' you, mother --my dear, dear sawl, my heart bleeds for 'e."

"I caan't cry for her--my tears be dried at the roots o' my eyes. I be down-danted to the edge o' my awn graave. If my man wasn't gone daft hisself, I reckon I should a gone. Come in--come in. Joan an' Tom dead in a night, an' the faither of 'em worse than dead. I shall knaw it is so bimebye. 'Tis awnly vain words yet. Iss, you'd best to see en now you'm here. He may knaw 'e or he may not. He sits craakin' beside the fire, full o' wild, mad, awful words. Doctor sez theer ban't no bettering of it. But he may live years an' years, though 'tedn' likely. Tell en as Joan's dead.

Theer edn' no call to be afeared. He's grawed quite calm--a poor droolin'

gaby."

Uncle Chirgwin approached Gray Michael and the fisherman held out his hand and smiled.

"'Tis farmer Chirgwin, to be sure. An' how is it with 'e, uncle?"

"Bad, bad, Tregenza. Your lil darter, your Joan, be dead--drownded in the flood, poor sweet lamb."

"You'm wrong, my son. Joan's bin dead these years 'pon years. She was d.a.m.ned afore 'er mother conceived her. h.e.l.l-meat in the womb. But the 'Lard is King,' you mind. Joan--iss fay, her mother was a Hitt.i.te--a lioness o'

the Hitt.i.tes, an' the mother's sins be visited 'pon the childern, 'cordin'

to the dark ways o' the livin' G.o.d."

"Doan't 'e say it, Michael! She died lovin' Christ. Be sure o' that."

The other laughed loudly, and burst into mindless profanity and obscenity.

So the purest liver and most cleanly thinker has often cursed and uttered horrible imprecations and profanations under the knife, being chloroformed and unconscious the while. Uncle Chirgwin gazed and listened open mouthed.

This spectacle of a shattered intellect came upon him as an absolutely new manifestation. Any novel experience is rare when a man has pa.s.sed the age of seventy, and the farmer was profoundly agitated. Then a solemn fit fell upon Gray Michael, and as his visitor rose to depart he quoted from words long familiar to the speaker--weird utterances, and doubly weird from a madman's mouth in Uncle Chirgwin's opinion. Out of the wreck and ruin of quite youthful memories, Michael's maimed mind had now pa.s.sed to these later, strenuous days of his early religious existence, when he fought for his soul, and lived with the Bible in his hand.

"Hark to me, will 'e? Hark to the word o' G.o.d echoed by His worm. 'He that heareth let en hear, an' he that forbeareth let en forbear, for they are a rebellious house.' An' what shall us do then? Theer was a man as builded a heydge around a guckoo, thinkin', poor fool, to catch the bird; but her flew off. That edn' the Lard's way. 'Make a chain, for the land is full o'

b.l.o.o.d.y crimes an' the city is full o' violence!' 'An' all that handle the oar, the mariners, an' all the pilots o' the sea, shall come down from theer s.h.i.+ps,' an' me amongst the rest. That's why I be here now, wi'

bitterness o' heart an' bitter wailin' for my dead bwoy. 'As for theer rings, they was (were) so high that they was (were) dreadful; an' theer rings were full of eyes round about.' Huntin' d.a.m.ned sawls, my son--a braave sight for G.o.dly folks. That's why the rings of 'em be so full of eyes! They need be. An' theer wings whistle like a hawk arter a pigeon.

'Because o' the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.'"