The Delectable Duchy Part 22

The fellow's purpose, of course, was to see King George. But King George, as it happened, was daft just then; and George his son reigned in his stead, being called the Prince Regent. Weary days did Dan'l air his heels with one Minister of the Crown after another before he could get to see this same Regent, and 'tis to be supposed that the great city, being new to him, weighed heavy on his spirits. And all the time he had but one plea, that his brother was no more than a boy and hadn't an ounce of vice in his nature--which was well enough beknown to all in Tregarrick, but didn't go down with His Majesty's advisers: while as for the Prince Regent, Dan'l couldn't get to see him till the Wednesday evening that Hughie was to be hanged on the Friday, and then his Royal Highness spoke him neither soft nor hopeful.

"The case was clear as G.o.d's daylight," said he: "the Lord Chief Justice tells me that the jury didn't even quit the box."

"Your Royal Highness must excuse me," said Dan'l, "but I never shall be able to respect that judge. My opinion of a judge is, he should be like a stickler and see fair play; but this here chap took sides against Hughie from the first. If I was you," he said, "I wouldn't trust him with a Petty Sessions."

"Well, you may think how likely this kind of speech was to please the Prince Regent. And I've heard that Dan'l; was in the very article of being pitched out, neck and crop, when he heard a regular caprouse start up in the antechamber behind him, and a lord-in-waiting, or whatever he's called, comes in and speaks a word very low to the Prince.

"Show him in at once," says he, dropping poor Dan'l's pet.i.tion upon the table beside him; and in there walks a young officer with his boots soiled with riding and the sea-salt in his hair, like as if he'd just come off a s.h.i.+p; and hands the Prince a big letter. The Prince hardly cast his eye over what was written before he outs with a l.u.s.ty hurrah, as well he might, for this was the first news of the taking of St. Sebastian.

"Here's news," said he, "to fill the country with bonfires this night."

"Begging your Royal Highness's pardon," answers the officer, pulling out his watch; "but the mail coaches have left St. Martin's Lane"--that's where they started from, as I've heard tell--"these twenty minutes."

"d.a.m.n it!" says Dan'l Best and the Prince Regent, both in one breath.

"Hulloa! Be you here still?" says the Prince, turning sharp round at the sound of Dan'l's voice. "And what be you waiting for?"

"For my brother Hughie's reprieve," says Dan'l.

"Well, but 'tis too late now, anyway," says the Prince.

"I'll bet 'tis not," says Dan'l, "if you'll look slippy and make out the paper."

"You can't do it. 'Tis over two hundred and fifty miles, and you can't travel ten miles an hour all the way like the coach."

"It'll reach Tregarrick to-morrow night," says Dan'l, "an' they won't hang Hughie till seven in the morning. So I've an hour or two to spare, and being a post-boy myself, I know the ropes."

"Well," says his Royal Highness, "I'm in a very good temper because of this here glorious storming of St. Sebastian. So I'll wager your brother's life you don't get there in time to stop the execution."

"Done with you, O King!" says Dan'l, and the reprieve was made out, quick as lightning.

Well, sir, Dan'l knew the ropes, as he said; and moreover, I reckon there was a kind of freemasonry among post-boys; and the two together, taken with his knowledge o' horseflesh, helped him down the road as never a man was helped before or since. 'Twas striking nine at night when he started out of London with the reprieve in his pocket, and by half-past five in the morning he spied Salisbury spire lifting out of the morning light. There was some hitch here--the first he met--in getting a relay; but by six he was off again, and pa.s.sed through Exeter early in the afternoon. Down came a heavy rain as the evening drew in, and before he reached Okehampton the roads were like a bog.

Here it was that the anguish began, and of course to Dan'l, who found himself for the first time in his life sitting in the chaise instead of in the saddle, 'twas the deuce's own torment to hold himself still, feel the time slipping away, and not be riding and getting every ounce out of the beasts: though, even to _his_ eye, the rider in front was no fool. But at Launceston soon after daybreak he met with a misfortune indeed. A lot of folks had driven down overnight to Tregarrick to witness the day's sad doings, and there wasn't a chaise to be had in the town for love or money.

"What do I want with a chaise?" said Dan'l, for of course he was in his own country now, and everybody knew him. "For the love of G.o.d, give me a horse that'll take me into Tregarrick before seven and save Hughie's life! Man, I've got a reprieve!"

"Dear lad, is that so?" said the landlord, who had come down, and was standing by the hotel door in nightcap and bedgown. "I thought, maybe, you was hurrying to see the last of your brother. Well, there's but one horse left in stable, and that's the grey your master sold me two months back; and he's a screw, as you must know. But here's the stable key. Run and take him out yourself, and G.o.d go with 'ee!"

None knew better than Dan'l that the grey was a screw. But he ran down to the stable, fetched the beast out, and didn't even wait to s.h.i.+ft his halter for a bridle, but caught up the half of a broken mop-handle that lay by the stable door, and with no better riding whip galloped off bare-back towards Tregarrick.

Aye, sir, and he almost won his race in spite of all. The hands o' the town clock were close upon seven as he came galloping over the knap of the hill and saw the booths below him and sweet-stalls and standings--for on such days 'twas as good as a fair in Tregarrick--and the crowd under the prison wall. And there, above them, he could see the little open doorway in the wall, and one or two black figures there, and the beam. Just as he saw this the clock struck its first note, and Dan'l, still riding like a madman, let out a scream, and waved the paper over his head; but the distance was too great. Seven times the clapper struck, and with each stroke Dan'l screamed, still riding and keeping his eyes upon that little doorway. But a second or two after the last stroke he dropped his arm suddenly as if a bullet had gone through it, and screamed no more. Less than a minute after, sir, he pulled up by the bridge on the skirt of the crowd, and looked round him with a silly smile.

"Neighbours," says he, "I've a-got great news for ye. We've a-taken St. Sebastian, and by all acounts the Frenchies'll be drove out of Spain in less'n a week."

There was silence in Boutigo's van for a full minute; and then the old woman spoke from the corner:

"Well, go on, Sam, and tell the finish to the company."

"Is there more to tell?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," said Sam, leaning forward again, and tapping my knee very gently, "there were _two men_ condemned at Tregarrick, that a.s.size; and two men put to death that morning. The first to go was a sheep-stealer. Ten minutes after, Dan'l saw Hughie his brother led forth; and stood there and watched, with the reprieve in his hand.

His wits were gone, and he chit-chattered all the time about St.

Sebastian."

LOVE OF NAOMI.

I.

The house known as Vellan's Rents stands in the Chy-pons over the waterside, a stone's throw beyond the ferry and the archway where the toll-keeper used to live. You may know it by its exceeding dilapidation and by the clouds of steam that issue on the street from one of its windows. The sill of this window stands a bare foot above the causeway, and glancing down into the room as you pa.s.s, you will see the shoulders of a woman stooping over a wash-tub. When first I used to pa.s.s this window the woman was called Naomi Bricknell; later it was Sarah Ann Polgrain; and now it is (euphemistically) Pretty Alice. One goes and makes way for another, but the wash-tub is always there and the rheumatic fever; and while these remain they will never lack, as they have never lacked yet, for a woman to do battle for dear life between them.

But my story concerns the first of these only, Naomi Bricknell. She and her mother occupied two rooms in Vellan's Rents as far back as I can remember, and were twisted with the fever about once in every six months. For this they paid one s.h.i.+lling a week rent. If you lift the latch and push the front door open, you seem at first to be looking down a well; for a flight of thirty-two steps plunges straight from the threshold to the quay door and a square of green water there. And when the sun is on the water at the bottom of this funnel, the effect is pretty. But taking note of the cold wind that rushes up this stairway and into the steaming room where the wash-tub stands, you will understand how it comes that each new tenant takes over the rheumatic fever as one of the fixtures.

In a room to the right of the stairway, and facing Naomi's, lived a middle-aged man who was always known as Long Oliver. This man was a native of the port, and it was understood that he and Naomi had been well acquainted, years ago, before he started on his first voyage and some time before Naomi married. Tiring of the sea in time, he had found work on the jetties and rented this room for sixpence a week. In these days he and Naomi rarely spoke to each other beyond exchanging a "Good-morning" when they met on the stairway, nor did he show any friendliness beyond tapping at her mother's door and inquiring about her once a day whenever she happened to be down with the fever. I have made researches and find that the rest of the house was tenanted at that time by a working block-maker, with his wife and four children; a widow and her son just returned from sea with an injured spine; a young couple without children. But these do not come into the tale.

Now the history of Naomi was this. She was married at three-and-twenty to Abe Bricknell, a young sailor of the port, and as steady as a woman could wish. In the third year of their married life, and a week after obtaining his certificate, he sailed out of Troy as mate of a fruit-s.h.i.+p, a barque, that never came back, nor was sighted again after pa.s.sing the Lizard lights.

Naomi--a tall up-standing woman with deep, gentle eyes, like a cow's, and a firm mouth that seldom spoke--took her affliction oddly. She neither wailed nor put on mourning. She looked upon it as a matter between herself and her Maker, and said:

"G.o.d has done this thing to me; therefore I have finished with Him. I am no man to go and revenge myself by breaking all the Commandments.

But I am a woman and can suffer. Let Him do His worst: I defy Him."

So she never set foot inside church again, nor offered any wors.h.i.+p.

The week long she worked as a laundress, and sat through the Sundays with her arms folded, gloomily fighting her duel. When the fever wrenched her arms and lips as she stood by the wash-tub, she set her teeth and said, "I can stand it. I can match all this with contempt.

He can kill, but that's not beating me."

Her mother, a large and pale-faced woman of sixty, with an apparently thoughtful contraction of the lips, in reality due to a habit of carrying pins in her mouth, watched Naomi anxiously during this period of her life. And Long Oliver watched her too, though secretly, with eyes screwed up after the fas.h.i.+on of men who have followed the sea.

One day he stopped her on the stairs and asked, abruptly:

"When be you thinkin' to marry again?"

"Never," she answered, straight and at once, halting with a hand on her hip and eyeing him.

"Dear me; but you will, I hope."

"Not to you, anyway."

"Laws me, no! I don't want 'ee; haven't wanted 'ee these ten years.

But I'd a reason for askin'."

"Then I'm sure I don't know what it can be."

"True--true. Look'ee here, my dear; 'tis ordained for you to marry agen."

"Aw? Who by?"