Chapter IV: Part 4

He went to his chest in the vestry and took out the volume--a cheap account book, ruled for figures. Taffy turned over the pages.

_Nov. 3rd. 187-. Brig "James and Maria:" J. D., fair-haired, height 5 ft. 8 in., marked on chest with initials and cross swords, tattooed, also anchor and coil of rope on right fore-arm: large brown mole on right shoulder-blade. Striped flannel drawers: otherwise naked: no property of any kind.

Ditto. Grown man, age 40 or thereabouts: dark; iron gray beard; lovers' knot tattooed on right fore-arm, with initials R. L., E. W., in the loops: clad in flannel shirt, guernsey, trousers (blue sea-cloth), socks (heather-mixture), all unmarked. Silver chain in pocket, with free-mason's token: a half-crown, a florin, and four-pence_----and so on. On the opposite page were entered the full names and details afterwards discovered, with notes of the Vicar's correspondence, and position of the grave.

"They ought to have grave-stones," said Mr. Raymond. "But as it is I can only get about thirty shillings for the funeral from the county rate. The balance has come out of my pocket--from two to three pounds for each. From the beginning the squire refused to help to bury sailors. He took the ground that it wasn't a local claim."

"Hullo!" said Taffy: for as he turned the leaves his eye fell on this entry:--

_Jan. 30th, 187-. S. S. "Rifleman" (all hands). Cargo, China-clay: W. P., Age, about eighteen, fair skin, reddish hair, short and curled, height 5 ft. 10¾ in. Initials tattooed on chest under a three-masted ship and semi-circle of seven stars; clad in flannel singlet and trousers (cloth): singlet marked with same initial in red cotton: pockets empty_----

"But he was in the navy!" cried Taffy, with his finger on the entry.

"Which one? Yes, he was in the Navy. You'll see it on the opposite page. He deserted, poor boy, in Cork Harbor, and shipped on board a tramp steamer as donkey-man. She loaded at Fowey and was wrecked on the voyage back. William Pellow he was called; his mother lives but ten miles up the coast; she never heard of it until six weeks after."

"But we--I, I mean--knew him. He was one of the sailor boys on Toby's van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at _Indian Queen's_? He showed me his tattoo marks that day."

And again he saw his childhood as it were set about with an enchanted hedge, across which many voices would have called to him, and some from near, but all had hung muted and arrested.

The inquest on the two drowned sailors was held next day at the _Fifteen Balls_, down in Innis village. Later in the afternoon, the four survivors walked up to the church, headed by the Captain.

"We've been hearing," said the Captain, "of your difficulties, sir: likewise your kindness to other poor sea-faring chaps. We have liked to make ye a small offering for your church, but sixteen shillings is all we can raise between us. So we come to say that if you can put us on to a job, why we're staying over the funeral, and a day's work or more after that won't hurt us one way or another."

Mr. Raymond led them to the chancel and pointed out a new beam, on which he and Jacky Pascoe had been working a week past, and over which they had been cudgelling their brains how to get it lifted and fixed in place.

"I can send to one of the miners and borrow a couple of ladders."

"Ladders? Lord love ye, sir, and begging your pardon, we don't want ladders. With a sling, Bill, hey?--and a couple of tackles. You leave it to we, sir."

He went off to turn over the gear salved from his vessel, and early next forenoon had the apparatus rigged up and ready. He was obliged to leave it at this point, having been summoned across to Falmouth, to report to his agents. His last words before starting were addressed to his crew. "I reckon you can fix it now, boys. There's only one thing more, and don't you forget it: any man that wants to spit must go outside."

That afternoon Taffy learnt for the first time what could be done with a few ropes and pulleys. The seamen seemed to spin ropes out of themselves like spiders. By three o'clock the beam was hoisted and fixed; and they broke off work to attend their shipmates' funeral. After the funeral they fell to, again, though more silently, and before nightfall the beam shone with a new coat of varnish.

They left early next morning, after a good deal of handshaking, and Taffy looked after them wistfully as they turned to wave their caps and trudged away over the rise toward the cross-roads. Away to the left in the wintry sunshine, a speck of scarlet caught his eye against the blue-gray of the town. He watched it as it came slowly toward him, and his heart leapt--yet not quite as he had expected it to leap.

For it was George Vyell. George had lately been promoted to "pink" and made a gallant figure on his strapping gray hunter. For the first time Taffy felt ashamed of his working suit and would have slipped back to the church. But George had seen him, and pulled up.

"Hullo!" said he.

"Hullo!" said Taffy; and, absurdly enough, could find no more to say.

"How are you getting on?"

"Oh, I'm all right." There was another pause. "How's Honoria?"

"Oh, she's all right. I'm riding over there now; they meet at Tredinnis to-day." He tapped his boot with his hunting crop.

"Don't you have any lessons now?" asked Taffy, after awhile.

"Dear me, yes; I've got a tutor. He's no good at it. But what made you ask?"

Really Taffy could not tell. He had asked merely for the sake of saying something. George pulled out a gold watch.

"I must be getting on. Well, good-by!"

"Good-by!"

And that was all.

XV

TAFFY'S APPRENTICESHIP

They could manage the carpentering now. And Jacky Pascoe, who in addition to his other trades was something of a glazier, had taken the damaged east window in hand. For six months it had remained boarded up, darkening the chancel. Mr. Raymond removed the boards and fixed them up again on the outside, and the Bryanite worked behind them night after night. He could only be spied upon through two lancet windows at the west end of the church, and these they curtained.

But what continually bothered them was their ignorance of iron-work. Staples, rivets, hinges were for ever wanted. At length, one evening toward the end of March, the Bryanite laid down his tools.

"Tell 'ee what 'tis, Parson. You must send the boy to someone that'll teach 'er smithy-work. There's no sense in this cold hammering."

"Wheelwright Hocken holds his shop and cottage from the Squire."

"Why not put the boy to Mendarva the Smith, over to Benny Beneath? He's a first-rate workman."

"That is more than six miles away."

"No matter for that. There's Joll's Farm close by; Farmer Joll would board and lodge 'en for nine shilling a week, and glad of the chance; and he could come home for Sundays."

Mr. Raymond, as soon as he reached home, sat down and wrote a letter to Mendarva the Smith and another to Farmer Joll. Within a week the bargains were struck, and it was settled that Taffy should go at once.

"I may be calling before long, to look you up," said the Bryanite, "but mind you do no more than nod when you see me."

Joll's Farm lay somewhere near Carwithiel, across the moor where Taffy had gone fishing with George and Honoria. On the Monday morning when he stepped through the white front gate, with his bag on his shoulder, and paused for a good look at the building, it seemed to him a very comfortable farmstead, and vastly superior to the tumble-down farms around Nannizabuloe. The flagged path, which led up to the front door between great bunches of purple honesty, was swept as clean as a dairy.

A dark-haired maid opened the door and led him to the great kitchen at the back. Hams wrapped in paper hung from the rafters, and strings of onions. The pans over the fireplace were bright as mirrors, and through the open window he heard the voices of children at play as well as the clacking of poultry in the town-place.

"I'll go and tell the mistress," said the maid; but she paused at the door. "I suppose you don't remember me, now?"

"No," said Taffy, truthfully.

"My name's Lizzie Pezzack. You was with the young lady, that day, when she bought my doll. I mind you quite well. But I put my hair up last Easter, and that makes a difference."

"Why, you were only a child."

"I was seventeen last week. And--I say, do you know the Bryanite, over to Innis?--Preacher Jacky Pascoe?"

He nodded, remembering the caution given him.

"I got salvation off him. Master and mis'ess, they've got salvation too; but they take it very quiet. They're very fond of one another; if you please one you'll please both. They let me walk over to prayer-meetin' once a week. But I don't go by Mendarva's shop--that's where you work--though 'tis the shortest way; because there's a woman buried in the road there, with a stake through her, and I'm a terrible coward for ghosts."

She paused as if expecting him to say something; but Taffy was staring at a "neck" of corn, elaborately plaited, which hung above the mantle-shelf. And just then Mrs. Joll entered the kitchen.

Taffy--without any reason--had expected to see a middle-aged house-wife. But Mrs. Joll was hardly over thirty; a shapely woman, with a plain, pleasant face and auburn hair, the wealth of which she concealed by wearing it drawn straight back from the forehead and plaited in the severest coil behind. She shook hands.

"You'll like a drink of milk before I show you your room?"

Taffy was grateful for the milk. While he drank it, the voices of the children outside rose suddenly to shouts of laughter.

"That will be their father come home," said Mrs. Joll and going to the side-door called to him. "John, put the children down; Mr. Raymond's son is here."

Mr. Joll, who had been galloping round the farmyard with a small girl of three on his back, and a boy of six tugging at his coat-tails, pulled up, and wiped his good-natured face.

"Glad to see you," said he, coming forward and shaking hands, while the two children stared at Taffy.

After a minute, the boy said, "My name's Bob. Come and play horses, too."

Farmer Joll looked at Taffy shyly. "Shall we?"

"Mr. Raymond will be tired enough already," his wife suggested.

"Not a bit," declared Taffy; and hoisting Bob on his back, he set off furiously prancing after the farmer.

By dinner-time he and the family were fast friends, and after dinner the farmer took him off to be introduced to Mendarva the Smith.

Mendarva's forge stood on a triangle of turf beside the high-road, where a cart-track branched off to descend to Joll's Farm in the valley. And Mendarva was a dark giant of a man with a beard like those you see on the statues of Nineveh. On Sundays he parted his beard carefully and tied the ends with little bows of scarlet ribbon; but on week days it curled at will over his mighty chest. He had one assistant whom he called "the Dane;" a red-haired youth as tall as himself and straighter from the waist down. Mendarva's knees had come together with years of poising and swinging his great hammer.

"He's little, but he'll grow," said he, after eying Taffy up and down. "Dane, come fore and tell me if we'll make a workman of 'en."

The Dane stepped forward and passed his hands over the boy's shoulders and down his ribs. "He's slight, but he'll fill out. Good pair o' shoulders. Give's hold o' your hand, my son."

Taffy obeyed; not very well liking to be handled thus.

"Hand like a lady's. Tidy wrist, though. He'll do, master."

So Taffy was passed, given a leathern apron, and set to his first task of keeping the forge-fire raked and the bellows going, while the hammers took up the music he was to listen to for a year to come.

This music kept the day merry; and beyond the window along the bright high-road there was usually something worth seeing--farm-carts, jowters' carts, the doctor and his gig, pedlars and Johnny-fortnights, the miller's wagons from the valley-bottom below Joll's Farm, and on Tuesdays and Fridays, the market van going and returning. Mendarva knew or speculated upon everybody, and, with half the passers-by, broke off work and passed the time of day, leaning on his hammer. But down at the farm all was strangely quiet, in spite of the children's voices; and at night the quietness positively kept Taffy awake, listening to the pur-r of the pigeons in their cote against the house-wall, thinking of his grandmother awake at home and listening to the _tick-tack_ of her tall clock. Often when he woke to the early summer daybreak and saw through his attic-window the gray shadows of the sheep, still and long, on the slope above the farmstead, his ear was wanting something, asking for something; for the murmur of the sea never reached this inland valley. And he would lie and long for the chirruping of the two children in the next room and the drawing of bolts and clatter of milk-pails below stairs.

He had a plenty to eat, and that plenty simple and good; and clean linen to sleep between. The kitchen was his, except on Saturday nights, when Mrs. Joll and Lizzie tubbed the children there; and then he would carry his books off to the best parlor, or stroll around the farm with Mr. Joll and discuss the stock. There were no loose rails in Mr. Joll's gates, no farm implements lying out in the weather to rust. Mr. Joll worked early and late, and his shoulders had a tell-tale stoop--for he was a man in the prime of life, perhaps some five years older than his wife.

One Saturday evening he unburdened his heart to Taffy. It happened at the end of the hay-harvest, and the two were leaning over a gate discussing the yet unthatched rick.

"What I say is," declared the farmer, quite inconsequently, "a man must be able to lay his troubles 'pon the Lord. I don't mean his work, but his troubles; and go home and shut the door and be happy with his wife and children. Now I tell you that for months--iss, years--after Bob was born, I kept plaguing mysel' in the fields, thinking that some harm might have happened to the child. Why, I used to make an excuse and creep home, and then if I see'd a blind pulled down, you wouldn't think how my heart'd go thump; and I'd stand wi' my hand on the door-hapse an' say, 'If so be the Lord have took'n, I must go and comfort Susan--not my will but Thine, Lord--but, Lord, don't 'ee be cruel this time!' And then find the cheeld right as ninepence and the blind only pulled down to keep the sun off the carpet! After awhile my wife guessed what was wrong--I used to make up such poor twiddling pretences. She said, 'Look here, the Lord and me'll see after Bob; and if you can't keep to your own work without poking your nose into ours, then I married for worse and not for better.' Then it came upon me that by leaving the Lord to look after my job I'd been treating Him like a farm-laborer. It's the things you can't help He looks after--not the work."

A few evenings later there came a knock at the door, and Lizzie, who went to open it, returned with the Bryanite skipping behind her.

"Blessings be upon this here house!" he cried, cutting a sort of double-shuffle on the threshold. He shook hands with the farmer and his wife, and nodded toward Taffy. "So you've got Parson Raymond's boy here!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Joll; and turned to Taffy. "He've come to pray a bit; perhaps you would rather be in the parlor?"

Taffy asked to be allowed to stay; and presently Mr. Pascoe had them all down on their knees. He began by invoking God's protection on the household; but his prayer soon ceased to be a prayer. It broke into ejaculations of praise--"Friends, I be too happy to ask for anything--Glory, glory! The blood! The precious blood! O deliverance! O streams of redemption running!" The farmer and his wife began to chime in--"Hallelujah!" "Glory!" and Lizzie Pezzack to sob. Taffy, kneeling before a kitchen chair, peeped between his palms and saw her shoulders heaving.

The Bryanite sprang to his feet, over-turning the settle with a crash. "Tid'n no use. I must skip. Who'll dance wi' me?"

He held out his hands to Mrs. Joll. She took them, and skipped once shamefacedly. Lizzie, with flaming cheeks, pushed her aside. "Leave me try, mis'ess; I shall die if I don't." She caught the preacher's hands, and the two leapt about the kitchen. "I can dance higher than mis'ess! I can dance higher than mis'ess!" Farmer Joll looked on with a dazed face. "Hallelujah!" "Amen!" he said at intervals, quite mechanically. The pair stood under the bacon rank and began to whirl like dervishes--hands clasped, toes together, bodies leaning back and almost rigid. They whirled until Taffy's brain whirled with them.

With a louder sob, Lizzie let go her hold, and tottered back into a chair, laughing hysterically. The Bryanite leaned against the table, panting.

There was a long pause. Mrs. Joll took a napkin from the dresser and fell to fanning the girl's face, then to slapping it briskly. "Get up and lay the table," she commanded; "the preacher'll stay to supper."

"Thank 'ee, ma'am, I don't care if I do," said he; and ten minutes latter they were all seated at supper and discussing the fall in wheat in the most matter-of-fact voices. Only their faces twitched, now and again.

"I hear you had the preacher down to Joll's last night," said Mendarva the Smith. "What'st think of 'en?"

"I can't make him out," was Taffy's colorless but truthful answer.

"He's a bellows of a man. I do hear he's heating up th' old Squire Moyle's soul, to knack an angel out of 'en. He'll find that a job and a half. You mark my words, there'll be Hamlet's ghost over in your parish one o' these days."

During work-hours Mendarva bestowed most of his talk on Taffy. The Dane seldom opened his lips, except to join in the Anvil Chorus--

Here goes one--
Sing, sing, Johnny!
Here goes two--
Sing, Johnny, sing!
Whack'n till he's red
Whack'n till he's dead
And whop! goes the widow with a brand new ring!

and when the boy took a hammer and joined in, he fell silent. Taffy soon observed that a singular friendship knit these two men, who were both unmarried. Mendarva had been a famous wrestler in his day, and his great ambition now was to train the other to win the County belt. Often, after work, the pair would try a hitch together on the triangle of turf, with Taffy for stickler; Mendarva illustrating and explaining, the Dane nodding seriously whenever he understood, but never answering a word. Afterwards the boy recalled these bouts very vividly--the clear evening sky, the shoulders of the two big men shining against the level sun as they gripped and swayed, their long shadows on the grass under which (as he remembered) the poor self-murdered woman lay buried.

He thought of her at night, sometimes, as he worked alone at the forge: for Mendarva allowed him the keys and use of the smithy overtime, in consideration of a small payment for coal, and then he blew his fire and hammered with a couple of candles on the bench and a Homer between them; and beat the long hexameters into his memory. The incongruity of it never struck him. He was going to be a great man, and somehow this was going to be the way. These scraps of iron--these tools of his forging--were to grow into the arms and shield of Achilles. In its own time would come the magic moment, the shield find its true circumference and swing to the balance of his arm, proof and complete.

ἐν δ' ἐτίθει ποταμοῖο μέγα σθένος Ὠκεανοῖο
ἄντυγα παρ' πυμάτην σάκεος πύκα ποιητοῖο.

XVI

LIZZIE AND HONORIA

His apprenticeship lasted a year and six months, and all this while he lived with the Jolls, walking home every Sunday morning and returning every Sunday night, rain or shine. He carried his deftness of hand into his new trade, and it was Mendarva who begged and obtained an extension of the time agreed on. "Rather than lose the boy I'll tache 'en for love." So Taffy stayed on for another six months.

He was now in his seventeenth year--a boy no longer. One evening, as he blew up his smithy fire, the glow of it fell on the form of a woman standing just outside the window and watching him. He had no silly fears of ghosts; but the thought of the buried woman flashed across his mind and he dropped his pincers with a clatter.

"'Tis only me," said the woman. "You needn't to be afeared." And he saw it was the girl Lizzie.

She stepped inside the forge and seated herself on the Dane's anvil.

"I was walking back from prayer-meeting," she said. "'Tis nigher this way, but I don't ever dare to come. Might, I dessay, if I'd somebody to see me home."

"Ghosts?" asked Taffy, picking up the pincers and thrusting the bar back into the hot cinders.

"I dunno; I gets frightened o' the very shadows on the road sometimes. I suppose, now, you never walks out that way?"

"Which way?"

"Why, toward where your home is. That's the way I comes."

"No, I don't." Taffy blew at the cinders until they glowed again. "It's only on Sundays I go over there."

"That's a pity," said Lizzie, candidly. "I'm kept in, Sunday evenings, to look after the children while farmer and mis'ess goes to Chapel. That's the agreement I came 'pon."

Taffy nodded.

"It would be nice now, wouldn't it--" She broke off, clasping her knees and staring at the blaze.

"What would be nice?"

Lizzie laughed confusedly. "Aw, you make me say 't. I can't abear any of the young men up to the Chapel. If me and you----"

Taffy ceased blowing. The fire died down and in the darkness he could hear her breathing hard.

"They're so rough," she went on, "And t'other night I met young Squire Vyell riding along the road, and he stopped me and wanted to kiss me."

"George Vyell? Surely he didn't?" Taffy blew up the fire again.

"Iss he did. I don't see why not, neither."

"Why he shouldn't kiss you?"

"Why he shouldn't want to."

Taffy frowned, carried the white hot bar to his anvil and began to hammer. He despised girls, as a rule, and their ways. Decidedly Lizzie annoyed him: and yet as he worked he could not help glancing at her now and then, as she sat and watched him. By and by he saw that her eyes were full of tears.

"What's the matter?" he asked, abruptly.

"I--I can't walk home alone. I'm afeared."

He tossed his hammer aside, raked out the fire, and reached his coat off its peg. As he swung round in the darkness to put it on, he blundered against Lizzie or Lizzie blundered against him. She clutched at him nervously.

"Clumsy! can't you see the doorway?"

She passed out, and he followed and locked the door. As they crossed the turf to the highroad, she slipped her arm into his. "I feel safe, that way. Let it stay, co!" After a few paces, she added, "You're different from the others--that's why I like you."

"How?"

"I dunno; but you _be_ diff'rent. You don't think about girls, for one thing."

Taffy did not answer. He felt angry, ashamed, uncomfortable. He did not turn once to look at her face, dimly visible by the light of the young moon--the Hunter's moon--now sinking over the slope of the hill. Thick dust--too thick for the heavy dew to lay--covered the cart-track down to the farm, muffling their footsteps. Lizzie paused by the gate.

"Best go in separate," she said; paused again and whispered, "You may, if you like."

"May do what?"

"What--what young Squire Vyell wanted."

They were face to face now. She held up her lips, and as she did so, they parted in an amorous murmurous little laugh. The moonlight was on her face. Taffy bent swiftly and kissed her.

"Oh, you hurt!" With another little laugh, she slipped up the garden-path and into the house.

Ten minutes later Taffy followed, hating himself.

* * * * *

For the next fortnight he avoided her; and then, late one evening, she came again. He was prepared for this, and had locked the door of the smithy and let down the shutter while he worked. She tapped upon the outside of the shutter with her knuckles.

"Let me in!"

"Can't you leave me alone?" he answered, pettishly. "I want to work, and you interrupt."

"I don't want no love-making--I don't indeed. I'll sit quiet as a mouse. But I'm afeared, out here."

"Nonsense!"

"I'm afeared o' the ghost. There's something comin'--let me in, co!"

Taffy unlocked the door and held it half open while he listened.

"Yes, there's somebody coming, on horseback. Now, look here--it's no ghost, and I can't have you about here, with people passing. I--I don't want you here at all; so make haste and slip away home--that's a good girl."

Lizzie glided like a shadow into the dark lane as the trample of hoofs drew close, and the rider pulled up beside the door.

"You're working late, I see. Is it too late to make a shoe for Aide-de-camp here?"

It was Honoria. She dismounted and stood in the doorway, holding her horse's bridle.

"No," said Taffy; "that is, if you don't mind the waiting."

With his leathern apron he wiped the Dane's anvil for a seat, while she hitched up Aide-de-camp and stepped into the glow of the forge-fire.

"The hounds took us six miles beyond Carwithiel: and there, just as they lost, Aide-de-camp cast his off-hind shoe. I didn't find it out at first, and now I've had to walk him all the way back. Are you alone here?"

"Yes."

"Who was that I saw leaving as I came up?"

"You saw someone?"

"Yes." She nodded, looking him straight in the face. "It looked like a woman. Who was she?"

"That was Lizzie Pezzack, the girl who sold you her doll, once. She's a servant down at the farm where I lodge."

Honoria said no more for the moment, but seated herself on the Dane's anvil, while Taffy chose a bar of iron and stepped out to examine Aide-de-camp's hoof. He returned and in silence began to blow up the fire.

"I dare say you were astonished to see me," she remarked at length.

"Yes."

"I'm still forbidden to speak to you. The last time I did it, grandfather beat me."

"The old brute!" Taffy nipped the hot iron savagely in his pincers.

"I wonder if he'll do it again. Somehow I don't think he will."

Taffy looked at her. She had drawn herself up, and was smiling. In her close riding-habit she seemed very slight, yet tall, and a woman grown. He took the bar to the anvil and began to beat it flat. His teeth were shut, and with every blow he said to himself "Brute!"

"That's beautiful," Honoria went on. "I stopped Mendarva, the other day, and he told me wonders about you. He says he tried you with a hard-boiled egg and you swung the hammer and chipped the shell all round without bruising the white a bit. Is that true?"

Taffy nodded.

"And your learning--the Latin and Greek, I mean; do you still go on with it?"

He nodded again, toward a volume of Euripides that lay open on the work-bench.

"And the stories you used to tell George and me; do you go on telling them to yourself?"

He was obliged to confess that he never did. She sat for awhile watching the sparks as they flew. Then she said, "I should like to hear you tell one again. That one about Aslog and Orm, who ran away by night across the ice-fields and took a boat and came to an island with a house on it, and found a table spread and the fire lit, but no inhabitants anywhere--You remember? It began 'Once upon a time, not far from the city of Drontheim, there lived a rich man----'"

Taffy considered a moment and began "Once upon a time, not far from the city of Drontheim----" He paused, eyed the horse-shoe cooling between the pincers, and shook his head. It was no use. Apollo had been too long in service with Admetus, and the tale would not come.

"At any rate," Honoria persisted, "you can tell me something out of your books: something you have just been reading."

So he began to tell her the story of Ion, and managed well enough in describing the boy and how he ministered before the shrine at Delphi, sweeping the temple and scaring the birds away from the precincts; but when he came to the plot of the play and, looking up, caught Honoria's eyes, it suddenly occurred to him that all the rest of the story was a sensual one and he could not tell it to her. He blushed, faltered, and finally broke down.

"But it was beautiful," said she, "so far as it went; and it's just what I wanted. I shall remember that boy Ion now, whenever I think of you helping your father in the church at home. If the rest of the story is not nice, I don't want to hear it."

How had she guessed? It was delicious, at any rate, to know that she thought of him, and Taffy felt how delicious it was, while he fitted and hammered the shoe on Aide-de-camp's hoof, she standing by with a candle in either hand, the flame scarcely quivering in the windless night.

When all was done, she raised a foot for him to give her a mount. "Good-night!" she called, shaking the reins. Taffy stood by the door of the forge, listening to the echoes of Aide-de-camp's canter, and the palm of his hand tingled where her foot had rested.

XVII

THE SQUIRE'S WEIRD

He took leave of Mendarva and the Jolls just before Christmas. The smith was unaffectedly sorry to lose him. "But," said he, "the Dane will be entered for the Championship next summer, so I s'pose I must look forward to that."

Everyone in the Joll household gave him a small present on his leaving. Lizzie's was a New Testament, with her name on the fly-leaf, and under it "Converted, April 19, 187-." Taffy did not want the gift, but took it rather than hurt her feelings.

Farmer Joll said, "Well, wish 'ee well! Been pretty comfiable, I hope. Now you'm goin', I don't mind telling 'ee I didn't like your coming a bit. But now 'tis wunnerful to me you've been wi' us less'n two year'; we've made such progress."

At home Taffy bought a small forge and set it up in the church, at the west end of the north aisle. Mr. Raymond, under his direction, had been purchasing the necessary tools for some months past; and now the main expense was the cost of coal, which pinched them a little. But they managed to keep the fire alight, and the work went forward briskly. Save that he still forbade the parish to lend them the least help, the old Squire had ceased to interfere.

Mr. Raymond's hair was grayer; and Taffy might have observed--but did not--how readily, toward the close of a day's laborious carpentry, he would drop work and turn to Dindorf 's _Poetæ Scenici Græci_, through which they were reading their way. On Sundays, the congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that as the end of the Vicar's task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, Jacky Pascoe's was a queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as anyone could see; and at length he took Mr. Raymond aside and made confession.

"I must go away; that's what 'tis. My burden is too great for me to bear."

"Why," said Mr. Raymond, who had grown surprisingly tolerant during the past twelve months, "what cause have you, of all men, to feel dejected? You can set the folk here on fire like flax." He sighed.

"That's azackly the reason--I can set 'em afire with a breath; but I can't hold 'em under. I make 'em too strong for me--_and I'm afeard_. Parson, dear, it's the gospel truth; for two years I've a been strivin' agen myself, wrastlin' upon my knees, and all to hold this parish in." He mopped his face. "'Tis like fightin' with beasts at Ephesus," he said.

"Do you want to hold them in?"

"I do and I don't. I've got to try, anyway. Sometimes I tell mysel' 'tis putting a hand to the plough and turning back; and then I reckon I'll go on. But when the time comes, I can't. I'm afeard, I tell 'ee." He paused. "I've laid it before the Lord, but He don't seem to help. There's two voices inside o' me. 'Tis a terrible responsibility."

"But the people, what are you afraid of their doing?"

"I don't know. You don't know what a runaway hoss will do, but you're afeard all the same." He sank his voice. "There's wantonness, for one thing--six love-children born in the parish this year, and more coming. They do say that Vashti Clemow destroyed her child. And Old Man Johns--him they found dead on the rocks under the Island--he didn't go there by accident. 'Twas a calm day, too."

As often as not Taffy worked late--sometimes until midnight--and blew his forge-fire alone in the church, the tap of his hammer making hollow music in the desolate aisles. He was working thus one windy night in February, when the door rattled open and in walked a totally unexpected visitor--Sir Harry Vyell.

"Good-evening! I was riding by and saw your light in the windows dancing up and down. I thought I would hitch up the mare and drop in for a chat. But go on with your work."

Taffy wondered what had brought him so far from his home at that time of night, but asked no questions. And Sir Harry placed a hassock on one of the belfry steps and, taking his seat, watched for awhile in silence. He wore his long riding boots and an overcoat with the collar turned up about a neck-cloth less nattily folded than usual.

"I wish," he said at length, "that my boy George was clever like you. You were great friends once--you remember Plymouth, hey? But I dare say you've not seen much of each other lately."

Taffy shook his head.

"George is a bit wild. Oxford might have done something for him; made a man of him, I mean. But he wouldn't go. I believe in wild oats to a certain extent. I have told him from the first he must look after himself and decide for himself. That's my theory. It makes a youngster self-reliant. He goes and comes as he likes. If he comes home late from hunting, I ask no questions; I don't wait dinner. Don't you agree with me?"

"I don't know," Taffy answered, wondering why he should be consulted.

"Self-reliance is what a man wants."

"Couldn't he have learnt that at school?"

Sir Harry fidgeted with the riding-crop in his hands. "Well, you see, he's an only son----. I dare say it was selfish of me. You don't mind my talking about George?"

Taffy laughed. "I like it."

Sir Harry laughed too, in an embarrassed way. "But you don't suppose I rode over from Carwithiel for that? You're not so far wrong, though. The fact is--one gets foolish as one grows old--George went out hunting this morning, and didn't turn up for dinner. I kept to my rule, and dined alone. Nine o'clock came; half-past; no George. At ten Hoskings locked up as usual, and off I went to bed. But I couldn't sleep. After awhile, it struck me that he might be sleeping here over at Tredinnis; that is, if no accident had happened. No sleep for me until I made sure; so I jumped out, dressed, slipped down to the stables, saddled the mare and rode over. I left the mare by Tredinnis great gates and crept down to Moyle's stables like a house-breaker; looked in through the window, and, sure enough, there was George's gray in the loose box to the right. So George is sleeping there, and I'm easy in my mind. No doubt you think me an old fool?"

But Taffy was not thinking anything of the sort.

"I couldn't wish better than that. You understand?" said Sir Harry, slyly.

"Not quite."

"He lost his mother early. He wants a woman to look after him, and for him to think about. If he and Honoria would only make up a match.... And Carwithiel would be quite a different house."

Taffy hesitated, with a hand on the forge-bellows.

"I dare say it's news to you, what I'm telling. But it has been in my mind this long while. Why don't you blow up the fire? I bet Miss Honoria has thought of it too; girls are deep. She has a head on her shoulders. I'll warrant she'd send half a dozen of my servants packing within a week. As it is, they rob me to a stair. I know it, and I haven't the pluck to interfere."

"What does the old Squire say?" Taffy managed to ask.

"It has never come to _saying_ anything. But I believe he thinks of it, too, when he happens to think of anything but his soul. He'll be pleased; everyone will be pleased. The properties touch, you see."

"I see."

"To tell you the truth, he's failing fast. This religion of his is a symptom; all of his family have taken to it in the end. If he hadn't the constitution of a horse, he'd have been converted ten years before this. What puzzles me is, he's so quiet. You mark my words"--Sir Harry rose, buttoned his coat and shook his riding-crop prophetically--"he's brewing up for something. There'll be the devil of a flare-up before he has done."

* * * * *

It came with the midsummer bonfires. At nine o'clock on St. John's Eve, Mr. Raymond read prayers in the church. It was his rule to celebrate thus the vigils of all saints in the English calendar and some few Cornish saints besides; and he regularly announced these services on the preceding Sundays; but no parishioner dreamed of attending them.

To-night, as usual, he and Taffy had prayed alone; and the lad was standing after service at the church door, with his surplice on his arm (for he always wore a surplice and read the lessons on these vigils), when the flame of the first bonfire shot up from the headland over Innis village.

Almost on the moment a flame answered it from the point where the lighthouse stood; and within ten minutes the horizon of the towans was cressetted with these beacon-fires; surely (thought Taffy) with many more than usual. And he remembered that Jacky Pascoe had thrown out a hint of a great revival to be held on Baal-fire Night (as he had called it).

The night was sultry and all but windless. For once the tormented sands had rest. The flame of the bonfires shone yellow--orange-yellow--and steady. He could see the dark figures of men and women passing between him and the nearest, on the high wastrel in front of Tredinnis great gates. Their voices reached him in a confused murmur, broken now and then by a child's scream of delight. And yet a hush seemed to hang over sea and land: an expectant hush. For weeks the sky had not rained. Day after day, a dull indigo blue possessed it, deepening with night into duller purple, as if the whole heavens were gathering into one big thunder-cloud, which menaced but never broke. And in the hush of those nights a listener could almost fancy he heard, between whiles, the rabbits stirring uneasily in their burrows.

By and by, the bonfire on the wastrel appeared to be giving out specks of light, which blazed independently; yet without decreasing its own volume of flame. The sparks came dancing, nearer and larger; the voices grew more distinct. The spectators had kindled torches and were advancing in procession to visit other bonfires. The torches, too, were supposed to bless the fields they passed across.

The procession rose and sank as it came over the uneven ridges like a fiery snake; topped the nearest ridge and came pouring down past the churchyard wall. At its head danced Lizzie Pezzack, shrieking like a creature possessed, her hair loose and streaming, while she whirled her torch. Taffy knew these torches; bundles of canvas steeped in tar and fastened in the middle to a stout stick or piece of chain. Lizzie's was fastened to a chain, and as he watched her uplifted arm swinging the blazing mass he found time to wonder how she escaped setting her hair on fire. Other torch-bearers tossed their arms and shouted as they passed. The smoke was suffocating, and across the patch of quiet graveyard the heat smote on Taffy's face. But in the crowd he saw two figures clearly--Jacky Pascoe and Squire Moyle; and the Bryanite's face was agitated and white in the glare. He had given an arm to the Squire, who was clearly the centre of the procession, and tottered forward with jaws working and cavernous eyes.

"He's saved!" a voice shouted.

Others took up the cry. "Saved!" "The Squire's saved!" "Saved to-night--saved to glory!"

The Squire paused, still leaning on the Bryanite's arm. While the procession swayed around him, he gazed across the gate, as a man who had lost his bearings. No glint of torchlight reached his eyes; but the sight of Mr. Raymond's surpliced figure, standing behind Taffy's shoulders in the full glare, seemed to rouse him. He lifted a fist and shook it slowly.

"Com'st along, sir!" urged the Bryanite.

But the Squire stood irresolute, muttering to himself.

"Com'st along, sir!"

"Lev' me be, I tell 'ee!" He laid both hands on the gate and spoke across it to Mr. Raymond, his head nodding while his voice rose.

"D'ee hear what they say? I'm saved. I'm the Squire of this parish, and I'm going to Heaven. I make no account of you and your church. Old Satan's the fellow I'm after, and I'm going to have him out o' this parish to-night or my name's not Squire Moyle."

"That's of it, Squire!" "Hunt' en!" "Out with 'en!"

He turned on the shouting throng.

"Hunt 'en? Iss fay I will! Come along, boys--back to Tredinnis! No, no"--this to the Bryanite--"we'll go back. I'll show 'ee sport, to-night--we'll hunt th'ould Divvle by scent and view. I'm Squire Moyle, ain't I? And I've a pack o' hounds, ha'n't I? Back, boys--back, I tell 'ee!"

Lizzie Pezzack swung her torch. "Back--back to Tredennis!" The crowd took up the cry, "Back to Tredinnis!" The old man shook off the Bryanite's hand, and as the procession wheeled and re-formed itself confusedly, rushed to the head of it, waving his hat--

"Back!--Back to Tredinnis!"

"God help them," said Mr. Raymond; and taking Taffy by the arm, drew him back into the church.

* * * * *

The shouting died away up the road. For three-quarters of an hour father and son worked in silence. The reddened sky shed its glow gently through the clear glass windows, suffusing the shadows beneath the arched roof. And, in the silence, the lad wondered what was happening up at Tredinnis.

* * * * *

Jim the Whip took oath afterward that it was no fault of his. He had suspected three of the hounds for a day or two--Chorister, White, Boy, and Bellman--and had separated them from the pack. That very evening he had done the same with Rifler, who was chewing at the straw in a queer fashion and seemed quarrelsome. He had said nothing to the Squire, whose temper had been ugly for a week past. He had hoped it was a false alarm--had thought it better to wait, and so on.

The Squire went down to the Kennels with a lantern, Jim shivering behind him. They had their horses saddled outside and ready; and the crowd was waiting along the drive and up by the great gates. The Squire saw at a glance that two couples were missing, and in two seconds had their names on his tongue. He was like a madman. He shouted to Jim to open the doors. "Better not, maister!" pleaded Jim. The old man cursed, smote him across the neck with the butt-end of his whip, and unlocked the doors himself. Jim, though half-stunned, staggered forward to prevent him, and took another blow which felled him. He dropped across the threshold of Chorister's kennel, the doors of all opened outwards, and the weight of his body kept this one shut. But he saw the other three hounds run out--saw the Squire turn with a ghastly face, drop the lantern and run for it as White Boy snapped at his boot. Jim heard the crash of the lantern and the snap of teeth, and with that he fainted off in the darkness. He had cut his forehead against the bars of the big kennel, and when he came to himself, one of the hounds was licking his face through the grating.

* * * * *

Men told for years' after how the old Squire came up the drive that night, hoof to belly; his chin almost on mare Nonesuch's neck; his face like a man's who hears hell cracking behind him; and of the three dusky hounds which followed (the tale said) with clapping jaws and eyes like coach-lamps.

* * * * *

Down in the quiet church Taffy heard the outcry, and, laying down his plane, looked up and saw that his father had heard it too. His mild eyes, shining through his spectacles, asked, as plainly as words: "What was _that_?"

"Listen!"

For a minute--two minutes--they heard nothing more. Then out of the silence broke a rapid, muffled beat of hoofs; and Mr. Raymond clutched Taffy's arm as a yell--a cry not human, or if human, insane--cut the night like a knife and fetched them to their feet. Taffy gained the porch first, and just at that moment a black shadow heaved itself on the churchyard wall and came hurling over with a thud--a clatter of dropping stones--then a groan.

Before they could grasp what was happening, the old Squire had extricated himself from the fallen mare, and came staggering across the graves.

"Hide me!----"

He came with both arms outstretched, his face turned sideways. Behind him, from the far side of the wall, came sounds--horrible shuffling sounds, and in the dusk they saw the head of one of the hounds above the coping and his fore-paws clinging as he strained to heave himself over.

"Save me! Save----"

They caught him by both arms, dragged him within and slammed the door.

"Save!----sa--!"

The word ended with a thud as he pitched headlong on the slate pavement. Through the barred door, the scream of the mare Nonesuch answered it.

(To be continued.)

THE FOREIGN MAIL SERVICE AT NEW YORK

By E. G. Chat

"Steamer's mail!!!" This loud call, echoing throughout the foreign room in the Post-office Building, is the equivalent of the "Clear ship for action" on the man-of-war. Instantly distributors leave their separating cases, stampers abandon their "blocks," the electric stamp-cancelling machine temporarily ceases its humming, buzzing rattle, every available clerk or porter gets ready for the fray, and the whole force charges with alacrity on the fast accumulating pile, as sack after sack is dumped on a low, large table, at times entirely hid from sight by bags with labels indicating their origin, thousands of miles away, whether from the confines of Siberia, or the shores of the Indian Ocean.

The sight, even to men familiar with the work, is inspiring, especially when at times two, and on certain occasions three, steamers land their cargo of sacks at the same hour. Not infrequently this happens when some one thousand and odd sacks have to be made ready for an outgoing steamer, and then the foreign force is fairly on its mettle, and may well be compared again to the crew of a battle-ship when it has to fight fire inside and fire from the enemy outside. Here again, as on the battle-ship, organization and years' training tell. The wagon-loads of sacks melt before the vigorous and steady onslaught as did the Spanish fleet before Dewey's guns, and in a short while the room is cleared and the "field-day" over.

It would be difficult, in this great cosmopolitan city of New York, to find a person who does not make use of this foreign service, yet strange to relate is the fact that, outside of the clerks immediately handling these mails, hardly anyone can be found who knows, or even has the slightest idea of the International Postal Union system. Perhaps this is accounted for by the comparatively very recent establishment of said system, and its growth so immediate and rapid that the public has not so far "caught up" with it.

The system was aptly described by Postmaster-General Gary at the opening of the Washington Postal Congress, in 1897, as "one of the grandest projects of the century." No other agency is responsible to such an extent for the tremendous expansion of great ideals and the exchange of views between nations characteristic of the last quarter of this century.

Previous to 1875, when the Treaty of Bern, assented to and ratified by twenty-two nations, took effect, the exchange of mails between separate nationalities was done under such difficulties, and subject to delays and mishaps of so many kinds, that a normal growth and improvement in keeping with the progress of civilization was out of the question. In 1840 the foreign mail from England for the United States, carried on the Great Western, consisted of two sacks of mail. As late as 1873 a steamer from Europe with 20,000 letters on board was considered a record breaker. To-day the Cunard steamers and other transatlantic ships carrying what is called a "full European mail," usually bring some two hundred thousand letters, and an average of three hundred sacks of newspapers and printed matter for New York City, not to mention the five hundred and odd sacks for Canada, Mexico, and transpacific countries, and a few United States exchange offices, which are now taken direct to the trains and not handled at the New York office.

The working unit of the International Postal Union system is the "Exchange Office." Each postal administration selects these despatching and receiving centres according to quantity of mail handled at any particular point. In European countries many of these offices are on trains from one important point to another, and are called Travelling Exchange offices. They receive and despatch mails in the same manner as offices located in large cities. There are also exchange offices located on steamship lines, and they are called Sea Post-offices. No matter where located, these offices all conduct business on the same lines, and handle mail in the same manner throughout the world. The rules and regulations of this service are adopted by Postal Congresses, meeting about every six years and under the general supervision of the International Bureau of the Postal Union located at Bern, Switzerland, and supported by funds from all governments represented in the Union according to the respective importance of their mail service.