Chapter THE FIFTH: St. Cuby's Well

To see another eat when oneself is hungry, or sleep when oneself is wakeful, is surely very trying to the temper, except to those happily-constituted individuals who are incapable of envy. Dick Trevanion was as generous-hearted a boy as you could wish; but as the time went by, unmarked by anything but the slow rise of the boat and the quick dwindling of the candle in the lantern, he looked at Sam's open mouth with impatience, listened to his untuneful solo with dislike, and felt a deplorable desire to kick him. He had no watch, and bethought himself that it might be as well, when he got home, to test the duration of a candle, so that if he were ever in such a predicament again he might at least have a clock of King Alfred's sort. Every now and then he snuffed the coarse wick, and when the tallow had sunk almost to the socket, he substituted another candle-end that he happened to have in his pocket. Beyond this he had nothing to employ him.

But by-and-by, as the roof of the vault came nearer to him with the gradual lifting of the boat, an idea struck him. Why not use the boat as a raised platform for the ladder, and so contrive to examine an additional ten or twelve feet of the walls? The ladder!--it was floating on the surface of the water, heaving simultaneously with the boat as the tide gently rippled in.

"Wake up, Sam!" he called.

Sam snored on.

"Wake up!" cried Dick again, leaning over and pinching the sleeper's nose.

Sam struck out with his fist, as any honest English boy would have done, without opening his eyes. But at a third call he roused himself, sat up, and rubbing those heavy organs vigorously, sighed like a furnace, and then said sleepily:

"Why, where be I?"

"In dreamland, I should think," replied Dick, laughing. "Wake up! I want you to hold the ladder against the wall while I climb again."

"In twelve feet o' water! Not me; I bean't growed enough for that. 'Tis work for a giant."

"Not on the ground, of course; in the boat, I mean."

Sam looked dubious.

"Won't it wamble? And if you tumble you'll sink us."

"Well, we can try. Take hold of the end of the ladder floating by you, and I'll paddle close to the wall."

On lifting the ladder, they found that its top came within a few feet of the roof. But when Dick began to climb, he descended in a hurry, for the ladder being of necessity set up at an angle, every upward step drove the boat from the wall towards the middle of the cave.

"Be-jowned if we can do it!" cried Sam. "That there openin' will be the death o' me."

Dick was at a loss. There was no way of keeping the boat in a fixed position. Even if he dropped the anchor and it held in the sandy bottom, the boat would still have a range of movement that altogether prohibited the success of his plan. He looked gloomily at Sam; it was vexatious to be baulked when achievement was so near. Sam, with his hands on the sides of the ladder, was gazing up its length, his eyes gradually converging as they travelled higher, until they seemed almost to be looking at each other. All at once they reverted to their natural position, and he cried:

"I've got a noble thought, I do b'lieve."

"What's that?"

"Why, 'tis as easy as anything. See that place, Maister Dick, up aloft there, where the wall goes in summat?"

"Well, what then?"

"I'll show 'ee. You'd never ha' thought of it, 'cos you was lookin' down instead o' lookin' up."

He drew down the ladder until its whole length lay along one side of the boat.

"Look 'ee here," he said. "We'll take the anchor, and fix it upright in middle of the ladder, lash it to the top rung, do 'ee see?" He suited the action to the word. "There! Now 'tis a hook, or a clutch, or whatever name you like to gie un. We'll lift un again till it hooks on that ledge; then it will hang free, and you can climb as easy as climbing trees."

"A capital notion, Sam," cried Dick.

"I said it was, purticler for a poor mazy stunpoll of a feller like me."

"You're a genius if it works out. The thing is to try it."

Raising the ladder to its former position, they moved it along the face of the wall until one fluke of the anchor held firmly to the ledge of rock, as they proved by exerting a considerable downward strain.

"This is splendid," said Dick. "Now to go up."

"Ah, don't 'ee take the lantern with 'ee this time. I don't want no more cracks on the nob, and if it fell again, 't 'ud get soused in the water, and then we'd be in darkness."

"You're right. I'll take the candle out and stick it in my hat as the miners do. I must have a light, of course."

"I reckon you must, if you be goin' to find that openin'," said Sam, sceptical to the last.

Dick stuck the lighted candle into the band of his hat, stepped out of the boat, and began to climb, Sam watching his progress and offering bits of cautionary counsel. In a few seconds, when Dick's head projected above the anchor, he saw that the ledge of rock, extending for some distance on both sides, was the floor of a roughly rectangular fissure, which penetrated the earth much as the tunnel below penetrated the cliff. It ran upwards. The smoky light from the candle did not reach far, but Dick, peering over the ledge, was unable to see any solid background to the fissure.

"I've found the opening!" he said.

"What do 'ee say?" called Sam. "Yer voice sounds all a mumble and a rumble."

Clinging firmly to the ledge with both hands, Dick lowered his head and repeated the words.

"Now yer satisfied, then," said Sam. "Better come down afore the candle goes out."

"No. I'm going on."

"But chok' it all, you won't leave me all alone! I'm not afeard, not I; but if there be three or four seals a-comin' home by-and-by, I can't fight 'em all."

"You must come up too when I've looked a little farther."

"But you can't climb on to the ledge without summat to hold to. Maister Dick, think of yer feyther and mother, and what I'm to say if 'ee falls and breaks yer neck, and I take 'ee home a gashly corp."

"Don't talk rubbish. I shan't fall if you don't worry me. I'm not going to sit for hours longer in the boat till the tide goes down, so hold your tongue till I am safe aloft."

Leaning well forward, he carefully lifted his foot to the next rung, then to the next, watching the anchor to see that it was not displaced by his movements. Then he got one knee on the rocky shelf, stretched his arms in front of him, and with a sudden movement heaved his body on to the ledge and fell flat, his feet projecting into space. He crawled along on hands and knees until his boots disappeared from Sam's view, and stood up within the dark entrance of the fissure.

"I'm up, Sam," he called, his voice reverberating hollowly in the vault.

"Then I be comin' too," cried the boy.

"Not yet. You must wait a little until I see where the opening leads to. I'll come back for you presently."

He turned his face to the opening and went in. Dim as the light was, he recognised almost at once that he was at the end of a mine adit. Within a few paces the fissure narrowed to a dwarf tunnel, through which a tiny stream trickled, disappearing, not over the ledge into the cave, but into a fissure in the wall of rock. There was space for only two persons to pass abreast, and as Dick proceeded, he had to bend his head to avoid striking the roof. He was about to explore further, when he remembered that the candle in his hat could not last more than a few minutes, and to advance in the dark would be foolhardy. He had no more candles, and supposed that Sam had none, so that it seemed as if he must postpone further exploration. But returning to the ledge, he saw a light in the cave.

"You've got some more candle-ends, then?" he cried.

"One, that I've just fished up out of my pocket along with a bit of string, some bait, a bit o' pudden that I'd forgot--can't eat it now, hungry as I be, 'cos 'tis all tallowed--and a green penny."

"I want the candle, Sam; mine's going out. Can you pitch it up?"

"I can, but it 'ud only fall back into the water and go to the bottom."

"Wait. I've a bit of string in my pocket. I'll let it down; tie the candle on."

"I must do it, I suppose. Iss, you shall have it, and I'll be left in the dark, but I'm not afeard--not very."

In a minute Dick had the fresh candle in his hat-band, and once more entered the tunnel.

It was very damp, and Dick guessed from the trickling stream at his feet that the adit had been designed, when the mine was in operation, to drain the upper workings. How long ago this was he had no idea. It must have been long before old Reuben's time, or the man would have had more definite knowledge than he actually possessed, and the existence of the opening would have been known as a fact instead of being a mere fragment of village tradition.

Dick went on. In some parts the tunnel was almost impassable with earth and rocks that had fallen in. Step as cautiously as he might, every now and then the rattle of loose earth displaced by his movements caused a cold shiver to run down his back. What if there should be a fall behind him which would cut off his retreat to the cave? The tunnel ought to lead to an opening to the air above, but the way might be blocked, and the possibility of being entombed was daunting. But having come so far Dick was unwilling to give in. The peril might be purely imaginary. Plucking up his courage, he hastened his steps, and after a few minutes came to an enlargement of the tunnel. To his left a second gallery ran downward at a sharp angle with that in which he was; no doubt this also led to some point of the shore. Still advancing, he saw, with some surprise, that the passage was strutted in places, and much freer from obstructions than the portion he had already traversed. About a hundred yards beyond the transverse gallery, however, his progress was suddenly checked: the whole width of the tunnel was filled with a mass of rocks, stones, and loose earth. A few seconds' examination sufficed to show the impossibility of proceeding farther in this direction; accordingly he retraced his steps and, a few yards away, came to another passage, to find, however, after twenty or thirty paces, that he was again brought to a stop.

This time the obstruction was of a different nature. It was a rough door made of stout wooden beams, closed with a heavy bar resting in sockets. He lifted the bar and pulled the creaking door, which came towards him for an inch or two, and then stuck. To open it fully he had to remove from the floor a number of planks and beams, which appeared to be the parts of a broken windlass. Having got the door open and passed through, he found himself in a square chamber that smelt very damp and close, though, on looking upwards, he could see no roof. He concluded that he was at the bottom of a deep shaft. But it had not the look of a mine shaft, which, so far as Dick's experience went, was always timbered. The walls here were cased with stone, moss-grown and damp.

Near the doorway he caught sight of a staple of rusty iron let into the wall; a little above this, a second of the same kind; and at the same interval above the second, a third. Looking up the wall, he perceived that similar staples projected from the stonework as far up as the flickering light of his candle revealed. Their shape, and the intervals between them, indicated that they were steps by which the wall could be climbed. And then it flashed upon him suddenly that he was in an ancient well, known as St. Cuby's Well, though who St. Cuby was nobody knew except, perhaps, Mr. Carlyon, deeply learned in the antiquities of his county. The upper end of the well-shaft opened on the cliff, about a quarter-mile from the cottage of old Joe Penwarden, the exciseman. It was covered by the ivy-grown ruins of a small oratory, whither in times long past the faithful had come to have their children baptised in the water of the holy well, to drink of it for the cure of their diseases, and to offer up vows and repeat prayers before the sacred cross.

Strange as it may seem, Dick's first impulse, when the identity of his whereabouts flashed upon him, was to dash through the doorway and scamper with all imaginable speed back to the cave. He was not more superstitious than other boys of his age; but in those days, before old beliefs and fancies had undergone the cold douche of science, people were credulous of omens and spells, blessings and curses, beneficent influences and the evil eye. From St. Cuby's Well the aroma of sanctity had long since departed; according to village tradition, a murder of peculiar horror had once been committed there; and now it was shunned as a plague spot. No pilgrims came to kneel beneath the sacred roof; no children ever played hide and seek among its picturesque ruins; everybody, from the Squire downwards, avoided it, and at night not a man would have ventured within a hundred yards of its unhallowed precincts. Stories were rife of apparitions seen there; it was these ghosts of which Ike Pendry had spoken to John Trevanion on the night when he had overtaken the trudging pedestrian on the high road.

Dick, of course, had no belief in ghosts, and regarded the stories with as much intellectual contempt as his father gave to the witch's couplet. But his imagination was subject to impressions which his reason scorned; and in the gloom of the well-shaft, which the yellow rays of his candle rendered more awful than complete darkness could have been, these vague conceptions of murder, sacrilege, and midnight hauntings possessed his mind so completely as at first to overwhelm his common-sense. But he resolutely crushed down these figments of his imagination, told himself that such evil traditions might probably be traced to no more real origin than the failure of the spring of water, and decided to go back for his companion and put an end to their captivity by climbing up the iron steps to the surface of the cliff.

"Oh, I am glad to see 'ee," cried Sam, as his young master's head appeared at the brink of the ledge. "I bean't afeard, not I, but 'twas 'nation dark, and I felt a queer wamblin' in the inside o' me, 'cos I'm tarrible hungry, I reckon."

"Well, come along. I've found the way out. The opening leads to St. Cuby's Well, and we can climb to the top in no time."

"St. Cuby's Well! Dash my bones if I go within a mile o't. Dead men's bones, and sperits o' darkness--no, never will I do it."

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Dick, as stoutly as if he had never felt the least tremor on his own account. "I've seen no bones, and the spirits haven't laid a hand on me. Those silly tales only frighten children."

"And females. Ah, 'tis a pity the mistress won't let me take eggs and things to the Dower House. What I could tell to that nice young female wi' the hole in her rosy cheeks! How they'd go yaller and white when she heerd my tale of blood, and ghosteses in night-gowns, and all the other things o' darkness! Ah, 'twas to be, I s'pose: she'll hear it from some one else, and I shan't get the credit of it."

"No; she'll hear that you were too much of a baby to face 'em, and she'll despise you, instead of thinking well of you as she does now."

"Don't say it, Maister Dick," cried the boy. "Scrounch me if I lose my fame in that miserable way. I'll come, if you'll stand by me, and hold my hand if we hears a noise, and use your finest language to the sperits if they meddle wi' us. I've heerd tell that the Lord's prayer said back'ards will tarrify 'em out of their wits, but I reckon yer head's full of ancient heathen words that go straightfor'ard, and won't put 'ee to such a tarrible tax as turnin' religion topsy-turvy."

This was said as Sam climbed with deliberate care up the ladder. He gained the ledge more easily than Dick had done, having the help of Dick's hand.

"Can we get there afore candle's out?" he said anxiously, when they stood side by side.

"If we make haste," replied Dick, taking off his hat and looking at the inch-and-a-half of candle left, and the mass of tallow that lay on the brim like a small lake of lava. "We can fetch the boat at low-tide to-morrow."

They hurried on, and, Dick knowing the way, reached the shaft in much quicker time than when he had come alone. Sam got behind him at the doorway, peering under his armpits with wide eyes, and taking much comfort when he saw nothing but mossy walls.

"I'm downright shamed o' folks that believe in such gammut," he said, valiantly following Dick into the chamber.

"Well, now we'll climb up. It must be after sunset, or we should see a glimmer of light at the top. I'll go first."

"No, I'd better go first," said Sam hastily, looking round with something of his former air of timorous expectation. "You see, if you go first, the brim of yer hat will shet out all the light, and I'll miss my footing and be nawthin' but scattered members. But if I go first, do 'ee see, and you come close behind me--but not close enough to set my stockings afire--the light will be ekal betwixt us two. Do 'ee see my manin', Maister Dick?"

"Quite plain. I don't mind. We'll try one or two of the staples first, to make sure they are firm in the stonework, and then you can mount, and as your hind foot leaves one step, my fore hand will clutch it."

The staples stood the test of pulling, first by Dick, then by Sam, who also tried them, on the plea that he had more muscle. Then Sam began to climb, followed closely by Dick. After an ascent of perhaps a hundred feet, the former declared that he felt a whiff of fresh air, and immediately afterwards the candle flame was blown out. Looking up past Sam's fore-shortened body, Dick saw one star in the clear dark vault of the sky, and in a few seconds they were both standing on the ground beside the well-head, cooled by the breeze that blew through the ruined walls of the chapel from the sea. The roof had gone long ago; grass grew on the floor, and ivy twined itself in and out of the mullioned windows.

"There!" said Dick. "We are safe, you see. All that talk of ghosts is pure balderdash."

The darkness and the weird associations of the spot combined to make him set his tone of voice to a murmur. At that moment there fell upon the ears of the boys, as they stood side by side to recover breath after their climb, a low sound from somewhere beyond the walls, but not far away. It was like that of a person speaking in hollow, mournful accents. Sam caught Dick by the arm; Dick heard his teeth chatter.

"'Tis he!" whispered the trembling boy. "'Tis the ghost! Oh! let me hide myself afore he see I."

Dick did not reply. He was, it must be confessed, sufficiently startled. The sound ceased; but in a moment or two it recommenced, now being somewhat louder. Dick was in two minds, now thinking that he would run, now wondering whether he had not better stay. The slow droning still approached, and at last he caught articulate words:

"A-deary me! A-deary me! The world's a-cold, a bitter place for----"

The next words were indistinguishable.

"Hark to him!" whispered Sam. "He be in mortal pain, and I do feel that leery all down the small o' my back."

Dick sniffed, and sniffed again. Then he said:

"Ghosts don't smoke, Sam--at any rate, not tobacco. I'm going to see."

"How do 'ee know?" whispered Sam, still holding him by the arm. "I won't be so much afeard of him if he do be smoking bacca, but it may be summat else. It do smell rayther strong for a livin' man."

He followed Dick as he groped his way over fragments of masonry and through close-woven masses of ivy and weeds, until they came into the open. The night was very dark. The first thing they saw, at a distance of about twelve yards, was a small red glow, which brightened and faded at intervals. Drawing nearer to it cautiously, they perceived at the moments of greatest brightness that it lit up for an instant a grizzled chin, a sunken mouth, a quite ordinary nose, a ruddy face with a black patch over one eye, and a black hat over all.

"'Tis old Joe Penwarden," said Dick, in a tone that expressed surprise, relief, and a shame-faced consciousness.

"So 'tis, I do believe," cried Sam. "Be-jowned if 'a didn't ought to be locked up for playing such gashly tricks on poor souls."

"Avast there! Stand, in the King's name!" cried the old man, hearing their voices.

"So we will, so we will," said Sam. "Don't 'ee be afeard, maister; we bean't ghosteses, but just common mortals like yerself."

"Oh! 'tis you, Maister Dick," said Penwarden, as the boys came up to him. "'Pon my life, I was skeered for about a second and a half, never expectin' to see mortal men in this old haunt. What be 'ee doin' at this time o' night, in such a place, too?"

"What time is it, Joe?" asked Dick.

"Time all young things like lambs and birds and boys were abed and asleep. 'Tis past ten."

"Lawk-a-massy, if I didn't think it by the terrible emptiness in my inside," cried Sam, feelingly. "Come home-along, Maister Dick; I be mortal afeard as Feyther will send me to bed wi'out any supper."

"Wait a bit," replied Dick. "Where do you think we've been, Joe?"

"Not night-fishing, for ye've got no tackle. Nor rabbitin', for ye've got no snares. Ah, well! Ye med as well tell me first as last, for I be no good at guessin'."

"We've come up St. Cuby's Well."

"Come up, you say; but you must go down afore ye come up. I wouldn't like to say I don't believe 'ee."

"That would be very unfriendly. The truth is, Joe, we were down in the cave and got shut in by the tide, and to pass the time away we climbed up over a ledge and found ourselves in an old adit, and went along it till we came to the well-shaft. There are iron steps in the wall, and up we came."

"Well, if that bean't the queerest thing I've heerd for many a day. Who would ever ha' thowt it!"

"Didn't you know there were steps down the well side?

"Never heerd tell o' sech a thing."

"But haven't you seen it for yourself? I was thinking that, perhaps, you being here now, you knew all about it, and the idea did cross me that you might be the ghost people talk about, though to be sure you don't look like one."

"Bless 'ee, I've never set foot inside they walls. Sometimes of a night I come ramblin' round to smoke a peaceful pipe and meditate on the days o' my youth afore I turn in, but as for goin' inside--no, I've never thowt o't."

"Was 'ee afeard you med see the ghost, maister?" asked Sam, rejoicing to think that he had a fellow in timorousness.

"Well, no. A ghost is a sperit, they say, and I reckon I've got enough muscle in my aged arm to fend off a thing as has got no body."

"Still, you was talkin' to yerself as if ye was in great pain and sorrer. 'A-deary me,' 'ee said; I heard 'ee twice; and then 'the world's a-cold,'--and I s'pose 'ee felt the need o' takin' a comfortin' pull at yer pipe, for I heerd no more."

"It do show how young small chickerels like 'ee may be mistaken. Whenever I talk like that I be feelin' warmish and contented; remember that, young Sam, and don't traipse about spreadin' false reports about me. Moreover, don't 'ee tell nothing of yer climbing up the well, for 'a don't want the village rampin' round, spoilin' my peacefulness. St. Cuby's ghost hev his uses, and long may he walk."

"Very well, Joe," said Dick, "we'll say nothing about it. There have been no runs yet, I suppose?"

"No; 'tis early days for that. 'Tis true as Mr. Mildmay was called off Morvah way to-day. Maybe they'll try a run there to-night. But it won't be long afore we have trouble here, I reckon, for the pilchurs are late this year, and when they're late, smugglin' is early, 'cos the men get tired o' doin' nothing."

"Well, we had better be going. I usually tell Mother when I expect to be late, fishing or what not, and she'll wonder what has become of me. Are you coming our way, Joe?"

"Not yet, sir. I've a bit more meditation to get through first."

"What do you meditate about?" asked Dick.

"About my days o' youth, when I was a nimble young feller and served the King afloat. Ah! they were days, they were. Lord Admiral Nelson be a fine little chap, but nothing to the admiral I served with."

"Who was that?"

"Lord Admiral Rodney. Never shall I forget the time he spoke to me: yes, lord as he was, he did so. It do warm me of a cold night to think of it. Not every simple mariner could say he'd been spoke to ashore by sech a high person as a admiral."

"What did the lord high admiral say to 'ee?" asked Sam, much impressed.

"Well, 'twas on Plymouth Hoe, and the admiral was walking with two handsome females, showing 'em Drake's Island; Drake was another mariner, you must know, as lived about a thousand year ago, seemingly. Well, I turned round to look at the great man, and that moment he changed his course, put up his helm, ye may say, and ran across my bows. 'Get out o' the way, you cross-eyed son of a sea-cook!' says he to me. Ah! never shall I forget it, nor the tinkly laugh o' they fine females. 'Twas a great honour to be spoke to special by Lord Admiral Rodney, a fine feller of a man."

"I don't wonder it keeps you warm," said Dick, laughing. "Good-night, Joe."

"Good-night to you, sir. And young Sam, mind 'ee o' what I said."

"Make yourself easy, maister," returned Sam. "Oh, dear, what a thing it 'ud be to tell the maidy at the Dower House if on'y Squire warn't so cruel!"

"What are you mumblin' about?"

"Nawthin', Maister Penwarden. I were on'y thinkin' to myself what a lot o' folk 'ud be mazed if they knowed what sorrerful things ye do say when yer happy."