Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

"Bain't no Cappen, and han't got no big words," said Timber-leg'd Dick, getting up with a rattle, and standing very staunchly; "but can't refuse this here gentleman, under the circumstances. And every word as I says will be true."

After this left-handed compliment, received with a cheer in which the lawyer joined, the ancient salt premised that among good friends, he relied on honour bright, that there should be no dirty turn. To this all pledged themselves most freely; and he trusting rather in his own reservations than their pledge, that no harm should ever come of it, shortly told his story, which in substance was as follows. But some names which he omitted have been filled in, now that all fear of enquiry is over.

In the previous September, when the nights were growing long, a successful run across the Channel had been followed by a peaceful, and well-conducted, landing at a lonely spot on the Devonshire coast, where that pretty stream the Otter flows into the sea. That part of the shore was very slackly guarded then; and none of the authorities got scent, while scent was hot, of this cordial international transaction. Some of these genuine wares found a home promptly and pleasantly in the neighbourhood, among farmers, tradesmen, squires, and others, including even some loyal rectors, and zealous Justices of the Peace, or peradventure their wives and daughters capable of minding their own keys. Some, after dwelling in caves, or furze-ricks, barns, potato-buries, or hollow trees, went inland, or to Sidmouth, or Seaton, or anywhere else where a good tax-payer had plastered up his windows, or put "Dairy" on the top of them.

But the prime of the cargo, and the very choicest goods, such as fine Cognac, rich silk and rare lace, too good for pedlars, and too dear for Country parsons still remained stored away very snugly, in some old dry cellars beneath the courtyard of a ruined house at Budleigh; where nobody cared to go poking about, because the old gentleman who lived there once had been murdered nearly thirty years ago, for informing against smugglers, and was believed to be in the habit of walking there now. These shrewd men perceived how just it was that he should stand guard in the spirit over that which in the flesh he had betrayed, especially as his treason had been caused by dissatisfaction with his share in a very fine contraband venture. Much was now committed to his posthumous sense of honour; for the free-traders vowed that they could make a thousand pounds of these choice wares in any wealthy town, like Bath, or Bristol, or even Weymouth, then more fashionable than it is now.

But suddenly their bright hopes were dashed. Instead of reflecting on the value of these goods, they were forced to take hasty measures for their safety. A very bustling man, of a strange suspicious turn, as dry as a mull of snuff, and as rough as a nutmeg-grater; in a word a Scotchman out of sympathy with the natives, was appointed to the station at Sidmouth, and before he unpacked his clothes began to rout about, like a dog who has been trained to hunt for morels. Very soon he came across some elegant French work, in cottages, or fishers' huts, or on the necks of milkmaids; and nothing would content him until he had discovered, even by such deep intriguery as the distribution of lollipops, the history of the recent enterprise.

"Let bygones be bygones," would have been the Christian sentiment of any new-comer at all connected with the district; and Sandy MacSpudder must have known quite well, that his curiosity was in the worst of taste, and the result too likely to cast discredit on his own predecessor, who was threatening to leave the world just then, with a large family unprovided for. Yet such was this Scotchman's pertinacity and push, that even the little quiet village of Budleigh, which has nothing to do but to listen to its own brook prattling to the gently smiling valley, even this rose-fringed couch of peace was ripped up by the slashing of this rude Lieutenant's cutlass. A spectre, even of the best Devonian antecedents, was of less account than a scare-crow to this matter-of-fact Lowlander. "A' can smell a rat in that ghostie," was his profane conclusion.

This put the spirited free-traders on their mettle. Fifty years ago, that Scotch interloper would have learned the restful qualities of a greener sod than his. But it is of interest to observe how the English nature softened, when the martial age had lapsed. It scarcely occurred to this gentler generation, that a bullet from behind a rock would send this spry enquirer to solve larger questions on his own account. Savage brutality had less example now.

The only thing therefore was to over-reach this man. He was watching all the roads along the coast, to east and west; but to guard all the tangles of the inward roads, and the blessed complexity of Devonshire lanes would have needed an army of pure natives. Whereas this busy foreigner placed no faith in any man born in that part of the world – such was his judgment – and had called for a draft of fellows having different vowels.

This being so, it served him right to be largely out-witted by the thick-heads he despised. And he had made such a fuss about it, at head-quarters, and promised such wonders if the case were left to him, that when he captured nothing but a string of worn-out kegs filled with diluted sheep-wash, he not only suffered for a week from gastric troubles – through his noseless hurry to identify Cognac – but also received a stinging reprimand, and an order for removal to a very rugged coast, where he might be more at home with the language and the manners. And his predecessor's son obtained that sunny situation. Thus is zeal rewarded always, when it does not win the seal.

None will be surprised to hear that the simple yet masterly stratagem, by means of which the fair western county vindicated its commercial rights against northern arrogance and ignoble arts, was the invention of a British Tar, an old Agamemnon, a true heart of oak, re-membered also in the same fine material. The lessons of Nelson had not been thrown away; this humble follower of that great hero first mis-led the adversary, and then broke his line. Invested as he was by superior forces seeking access even to his arsenal, he despatched to the eastward a lumbering craft, better known to landsmen as a waggon, heavily laden with straw newly threshed, under which was stowed a tier of ancient kegs, which had undergone too many sinkings in the sea (when a landing proved unsafe) to be trusted any more with fine contents. Therefore they now contained sheep-wash, diluted from the brook to the complexion of old brandy. In the loading of this waggon special mystery was observed, which did not escape the vigilance of the keen lieutenant's watchmen. With a pair of good farm-horses, and a farm-lad on the ridge of the load, and a heavy fellow whistling not too loudly on the lade-rail, this harmless car of fictitious Bacchus, crowned by effete Ceres, wended its rustic way towards the lowest bridge of Otter, a classic and idyllic stream. These two men, of pastoral strain and richest breadth of language, carried orders of a simplicity almost equal to their own.

No sooner was this waggon lost to sight and hearing in the thick October night, and the spies sped away by the short cuts to report it, than a long light cart, with a strong out-stepping horse, came down the wooded valley to the ghostly court. In half an hour, it was packed, and started inland, passing the birthplace of a very great man, straight away to Farringdon and Rockbear, with orders to put up at Clist Hidon before daylight, where lived a farmer who would harbour them securely. On the following night they were to make their way, after shunning Cullompton, to the shelter in Blackmarsh, where they would be safe from all intrusion, and might await fresh instructions, which would take them probably towards Bridgwater, and Bristol. By friendly ministrations of the Whetstone men, who had some experience in trade of this description, all this was managed with the best success; Jem Kettel knew the country roads, by dark as well as daylight, and Harvey Tremlett was not a man to be collared very easily. In fact, without that sad mishap to their very willing and active nag, they might have fared through Perlycross, as they had through other villages, where people wooed the early pillow, without a trace or dream of any secret treasure passing.

Meanwhile at Sidmouth the clever Scotchman was enjoying his own acuteness. He allowed that slowly rolling waggon of the Eleusine dame to proceed some miles upon its course, before his men stood at the horses' heads. There was wisdom in this, as well as pleasure – the joy a cat prolongs with mouse – inasmuch as all these good things were approaching his own den of spoil. When the Scotchmen challenged the Devonshire swains, with flourish of iron, and of language even harder, an interpreter was sorely needed. Not a word could the Northmen understand that came from the broad soft Southron tongues; while the Devonshire men feigning, as they were bidden, to take them for highwaymen, feigned also not to know a syllable of what they said.

This led, as it was meant to do, to very lavish waste of time, and increment of trouble. The carters instead of lending hand for the unloading of their waggon, sadly delayed that operation, by shouting out "thaves!" at the top of their voice, tickling their horses into a wild start now and then, and rolling the Preventive men off at the tail. MacSpudder himself had a narrow escape; for just when he chanced to be between two wheels, both of them set off, without a word of notice; and if he had possessed at all a western body, it would have been run over. Being made of corkscrew metal by hereditary right, he wriggled out as sound as ever; and looked forward all the more to the solace underlying this reluctant pile, as dry as any of his own components.

Nothing but his own grunts can properly express the fattening of his self-esteem (the whole of which was home-fed) when his men, without a fork – for the Boreal mind had never thought of that – but with a great many chops of knuckles (for the skin of straw is tougher than a Scotchman's) found their way at midnight, like a puzzled troop of divers, into the reef at bottom of the sheefy billows. Their throats were in a husky state, from chaff too penetrative, and barn-dust over volatile, and they risked their pulmonary weal, by opening a too sanguine cheer.

"Duty compels us to test the staple;" the Officer in command decreed; and many mouths gaped round the glow of his bullseye. "Don't 'ee titch none of that their wassh!" The benevolent Devonians exclaimed in vain. Want of faith prevailed; every man suspected the verdict of his predecessor, and even his own at first swallow. If timber-leg'd Dick could have timed the issue, what a landing he might have made! For the Coast-guard tested staple so that twenty miles of coast were left free for fifty hours.

Having told these things in his gravest manner, Herniman, who so well combined the arts of peace and war, filled another pipe, and was open to enquiry. Everybody accepted his narrative with pleasure, and heartily wished him another such a chance of directing fair merchandise along the lanes of luck. The blacksmith alone had some qualms of conscience, for apparent back-slidings from the true faith of free-trade. But they clapped him on the back, and he promised with a gulp, that he never would peep into a Liberal Van again.

"There is one thing not quite clear to me;" said the Hopper, when the man of iron was settled below the table, whereas the youth had kept himself in trim for steeple-chasing. "What could our friend have seen in that vehicle of free-trade, to make him give that horrible account of its contents? And again, why did Mr. Harvey Tremlett carry off that tool of his, which I found in the water?"

With a wave of his hand – for his tongue had now lost, by one of nature's finest arrangements, the exuberance of the morning, whereas a man of sober silence would now have gushed into bright eloquence – the chairman deputed to Herniman, and Tremlett, the honour of replying to the Hopper.

"You see, sir," said the former, "it was just like this. We was hurried so in stowing cargo, that some of the finest laces in the world, such as they call Valentines, worth maybe fifty or a hundred pounds a yard, was shot into the hold anyhow, among a lot of silks and so on. Harvey, and Jemmy, was on honour to deliver goods as they received them; blacksmith seed some of this lace a'flappin' under black tarporly; and he knowed as your poor Squire had been figged out for 's last voyage with same sort of stuff, only not so good. A clever old 'ooman maketh some, to Perlycrass; Honiton lace they calls it here. What could a' think but that Squire was there? Reckon, Master Crang would a' told 'e this, if so be a' hadn't had a little drap too much."

"Thou bee'st a liar. Han't had half enough, I tell 'e." The blacksmith from under the table replied, and then rolled away into a bellowsful of snores.

"To be sure!" said Peckover. "I see now. Tamsin Tamlin's work it was. Sergeant Jakes told me all about it. With all the talk there had been of robbing graves, and two men keeping in the dark so, no wonder Crang thought what he did. Many people went to see that lace, I heard; and they said it was too good to go underground; though nothing could be too good for the Squire. Well now, about that other thing – why did Mr. Tremlett make off with little Billy?"

"Can't tell 'e, sir, very much about 'un;" the wrestler answered, with a laugh at the boy's examination. "Happen I tuk 'un up, a'veelin' of 'un, to frighten blacksmith maybe; and then I vancied a' maight come handy like, if nag's foot went wrong again. Then when nag gooed on all right, I just chucked 'un into a pool of watter, for to kape 'un out o' sight of twisty volk. Ort more to zatisfy this yung gent?"

"Yes. I am a twisty folk, I suppose. Unless there is any objection, I should like very much to know why Dr. Fox was sent on that fool's errand to the pits."

"Oh, I can tell 'e that, sir," replied Jem Kettel, for the spirit of the lad, and his interest in their doings, had made him a favourite with the present company. "It were one of my mates as took too much trouble. He were appointed to meet us at the cornder of the four roads, an hour afore that or more; and he got in a bit of a skear, it seems not knowing why we was so behindhand. But he knowed Dr. Vox, and thought 'un better out o' way, being such a sharp chap, and likely to turn meddlesome. He didn't want 'un to hang about up street, as a' maight with some sick 'ooman, and so he zent un' t'other road, to tend a little haxident. Wouldn't do he no harm, a' thought, and might zave us some bother. But, Lord! if us could have only knowed the toorn your volk would putt on it, I reckon us should have roared and roared, all droo the strates of Perlycrass. Vainest joke as ever coom to my hearin', or ever wull, however long the Lord kapeth me a'livin'. And to think of Jem Kettel being sworn to for a learned Doctor! Never had no teethache I han't, since the day I heered on it." A hearty laugh was held to be a sovereign cure for toothache then, and perhaps would be so still, if the patient could accomplish it.

"Well, so far as that goes, you have certainly got the laugh of us;" Master Peckover admitted, not forgetting that he himself came in for as much as any one. "But come now, as you are so sharp, just give me your good opinion. And you being all along the roads that night, ought to have seen something. Who were the real people in that horrid business?"

"The Lord in heaven knoweth, sir;" said Tremlett very solemnly. "Us passed in front of Perlycrass church, about dree o'clock of the morning. Nort were doing then, or us could scarcely have helped hearing of it. Even if 'em heered our wheels, and so got out of sight, I reckon, us must a' seed the earth-heap, though moon were gone a good bit afore that. And zim'th there waz no harse there. A harse will sing out a'most always to another harse at night, when a' heareth of him coming, and a' standeth lonely. Us coom athert ne'er chick nor cheeld from Perlycrass to Blackmarsh. As to us and Clam-pit volk, zoonder would us goo to gallows than have ort to say to grave-work. And gallows be too good for 'un, accardin' my opinion. But gen'lemen, afore us parts, I wants to drink the good health of the best man I've a knowed on airth. Bain't saying much perhaps, for my ways hath been crooked like. But maketh any kearless chap belave in good above 'un, when a hap'th acrass a man as thinketh nort of his own zell, but gi'eth his life to other volk. God bless Passon Penniloe!"

CHAPTER XXXIX.

NEEDFUL RETURNS

Now it happened that none of these people, thus rejoicing in the liberty of the subject, had heard of the very sad state of things, mainly caused by their own acts, and now prevailing at Old Barn. Tremlett knew that he had struck a vicious blow, at the head of a man who had grappled him, but he thought he had missed it and struck something else, a bag, or a hat, or he knew not what, in the pell mell scuffle and the darkness. His turn of mind did not incline him to be by any means particular as to his conduct, in a hot and hard personal encounter; but knowing his vast strength he generally abstained from the use of heavy weapons, while his temper was his own. But in this hot struggle, he had met with a mutually shattering blow from a staff, as straight as need be upon his right-hand knuckles; and the pain from this, coupled with the wrath aroused at the access of volunteer enemies, had carried him – like the raging elements outside – out of all remembrance of the true "sacredness of humanity." He struck out, with a sense of not doing the right thing, which is always strengthened afterwards; and his better stars being ablink in the gale, and the other man's gone into the milky way, he hit him too hard; which is a not uncommon error.

Many might have reasoned (and before all others, Harvey Tremlett's wife, if still within this world of reason; and a bad job it was for him that she was now outside it) that nothing could be nobler, taking people as we find them – and how else can we get the time to take them? – than the behaviour of this champion wrestler. But, without going into such sweet logic of affinity, and rhetoric of friends (whose minds have been made up in front of it) there was this crushing fact to meet, that an innocent man's better arm was in a smash.

No milder word, however medical, is fit to apply to Frank Gilham's poor fore-arm. They might call it the ulna– for a bit of Latin is a solace, to the man who feels the pain in a brother Christian's member – and they might enter nobly into fine nerves of anatomy; but the one-sided difficulty still was there – they had got to talk about it; he had got to bear it.

Not that he made any coward outcry of it. A truer test of manliness (as has been often said, by those who have been through either trial), truer than the rush of blood and reckless dash of battle, is the calm, open-eyed, and firm-fibred endurance of long, ever-grinding, never-graduating pain. The pain that has no pang, or paroxysm, no generosity to make one cry out "Well done!" to it, and be thankful to the Lord that it must have done its worst; but a fluid that keeps up a slow boil, by day and night, and never lifts the pot-lid, and never whirls about, but keeps up a steady stew of flesh, and bone, and marrow.

"I fear there is nothing for it, but to have it off," Dr. Gronow said, upon the third day of this frightful anguish. He had scarcely left the patient for an hour at a time; and if he had done harsh things in his better days, no one would believe it of him, who could see him now. "It was my advice at first, you know; but you would not have it, Jemmy. You are more of a surgeon than I am. But I doubt whether you should risk his life, like this."

"I am still in hopes of saving it. But you see how little I can do," replied Fox, whose voice was very low, for he was suffering still from that terrible concussion, and but for the urgency of Gilham's case, he would now have been doctoring the one who pays the worst for it. "If I had my proper touch, and strength of nerve, I never should have let it come to this. There is a vile bit of splinter that won't come in, and I am not firm enough to make it. I wish I had left it to you, as you offered. After all, you know much more than we do."

"No, my dear boy. It is your special line. Such a case as Lady Waldron's I might be more at home with. I should have had the arm off long ago. But the mother – the mother is such a piteous creature? What has become of all my nerve? I am quite convinced that fly-fishing makes a man too gentle. I cannot stand half the things I once thought nothing of. By-the-by, couldn't you counteract her? You know the old proverb —

'One woman rules the men;

Two makes them think again,'

It would be the best thing you could do."

"I don't see exactly what you mean," answered Jemmy, who had lost nearly all of his sprightliness.

"Plainer than a pikestaff. Send for your sister. You owe it to yourself, and her; and most of all to the man who has placed his life in peril, to save yours. It is not a time to be too finical."

"I have thought of it once or twice. She would be of the greatest service now. But I don't much like to ask her. Most likely she would refuse to come, after the way in which I packed her off."

"My dear young friend," said Dr. Gronow, looking at him steadfastly, "if that is all you have to say, you don't deserve a wife at all worthy of the name. In the first place, you won't sink your own little pride; and in the next, you have no idea what a woman is."

"Young Farrant is the most obliging fellow in the world," replied Fox, after thinking for a minute. "I will put him on my young mare Perle, who knows the way; and he'll be at Foxden before dark. If Chris likes to come, she can be here well enough, by twelve or one o'clock to-morrow."

"Like, or no like, I'll answer for her coming; and I'll answer for her not being very long about it," said the senior doctor; and on both points he was right.

Christie was not like herself, when she arrived, but pale, and timid, and trembling. Her brother had not mentioned Frank in his letter, doubting the turn she might take about it, and preferring that she should come to see to himself, which was her foremost duty. But young Mr. Farrant, the Churchwarden's son, and pretty Minnie's brother, had no embargo laid upon his tongue; and had there been fifty, what could they have availed to debar such a clever young lady? She had cried herself to sleep, when she knew all, and dreamed it a thousand times worse than it was.

Now she stood in the porch of the Old Barn, striving, and sternly determined to show herself rational, true to relationship, sisterly, and nothing more. But her white lips, quick breath, and quivering eyelids, were not altogether consistent with that. Instead of amazement, when Mrs. Gilham came to meet her, and no Jemmy, she did not even feign to be surprised, but fell into the bell-sleeves (which were fine things for embracing) and let the deep throbs of her heart disclose a tale that is better felt than told.

"My dearie," said the mother, as she laid the damask cheek against the wrinkled one, and stroked the bright hair with the palm of her hand, "don't 'e give way, that's a darling child. It will all be so different now you are come. It was what I was longing for, day and night, but could not bring myself to ask. And I felt so sure in my heart, my dear, how sorry you would be for him."

"I should think so. I can't tell you. And all done for Jemmy, who was so ungrateful! My brother would be dead, if your son was like him. There has never been anything half so noble, in all the history of the world."

"My dear, you say that, because you think well of our Frankie – I have not called him that, since Tuesday now. But you do think well of him, don't you now?"

"Don't talk to me of thinking well indeed! I never can endure those weak expressions. When I like people, I do like them."

"My dear, it reminds me quite of our own country, to hear you speak out so hearty. None of them do it up your way, much; according to what I hear of them. I feel it so kind of you, to like Frank Gilham."

"Well! am I never to be understood? Is there no meaning in the English language? I don't like him only. But with all my heart, I love him."