The Astonishing History of Troy Town Part 5

There was no public demonstration. They might as well have come in the dead of night. Miss Limpenny was almost the sole witness of their arrival, and Miss Limpenny's observations were cut short by a terrible occurrence.

She had taken stock of the Honourable Frederic, and p.r.o.nounced him "aristocratic-looking"; of the Honourable Mrs. Frederic's travelling-dress, and decided it to be _c.u.meelfo_; she had counted the boxes twice, and made them seven each time; she was about to count the b.u.t.tons on the liveried youth, when--

To this day she sinks her voice as she narrates it. She saw--the unseemliness, the monstrous indelicacy of it!--she saw--the nightcap and shoulders of Admiral Buzza craning out of the next-door window!

What happened next? Whether she actually fainted, or merely kept her eyes shut, she cannot clearly remember. But for weeks afterwards, as she declares, the sight of a man caused her to "turn all colours."

It was significant, this nightcap of Admiral Buzza--as the ram's horn to Jericho, the Mother Carey's chicken to the doomed s.h.i.+p.

It announced, even as it struck, the first blow at the old morality of Troy.

CHAPTER IV.

OF CERTAIN LEPERS; AND TWO BROTHERS, WHO, BEING MUCH ALIKE, LOVED THEIR SISTER, AND RECOMMENDED THE USE OF GLOBES.

I must here clear myself on a point which has no doubt caused the reader some indignation. "We remarked," he or she will say, "that, some chapters back, the Admiral described Troy as a 'beautiful little town.' Why, then, have we had no description of it, no digressions on scenery, no word-painting?"

To this I answer--Dear sir, or madam, no one who has known Troy was ever yet capable of describing it. If you doubt me, visit the town and see for yourself. I will for the moment suppose you to do so.

What happens?

On the first day you take a boat and row about the harbour.

"Scenery!" you exclaim, "why, what could you have more? Here is a lovely harbour flanked by bold hills to right and left; here are the ruined castles, witnesses of the great days when Troy sent s.h.i.+ps to carry the English army to Agincourt; here axe grey houses huddled at the water's edge, h.o.a.ry, battered walls and quay-doors coated with ooze and green weed. Such is Troy, and on the further sh.o.r.e quaint Penpoodle faces it, where a silver creek, dividing, runs up to Lanbeg; further up, the harbour melts into a river where the old ferry-boat plies to and from the foot of a tiny village straggling up the hill; further yet, and the jetties mingle with the steep woods beside the roads, where the vessels lie thickest; s.h.i.+ps of all builds and of all nations, from the trim Canadian timber-s.h.i.+p to the corpulent Billy-boy. Why, the very heart of the picturesque is here.

What more can you want?"

On the second day you will see all this from the harbour again, or perhaps you will cross the ferry and climb the King's Walk on the opposite bank; you will see it all, but with a change. It is more lovely, but not the same.

On the third day you will cast about in your mind to explain this; and so in time you will come to find that it is the spirit of Troy that plays this trick upon you. For you will have learnt to love the place, and love, as you know, dear sir or madam, is apt to affect the eyesight.

The eyes of Mr. Fogo, as Caleb pulled st.u.r.dily up with the tide, were pa.s.sing through the first of these stages.

"This," he said at length, reflectively, "is one of the loveliest spots I have looked upon."

Caleb, in whom humanity and Trojanity were nicely compounded, flushed a bright copper-colour with pleasure.

"'Tes reckoned a tidy spot," he answered modestly, "by them as cares for voos an' such-like."

"There, now," he went on, after a pause, and turning round, "yonder's Kit's House, wi' Kit's Cottage, next door. You can't see the house so plain, 'cos 'tes behind the trees. But there 'tes, right enough."

"Is the cottage uninhabited, too?"

"Both on 'em. Ha'nted they _do_ say. By the way, I niver axed 'ee whether you minded ghostes?"

"Ghosts?"

"Iss, ghostes. This 'ere place was a Lazarus one time, where they kept leppards."

"Leopards? How very singular!" murmured Mr. Fogo.

"Ay, leppards as white as snow, as the sayin' goes."

"Oh, I see," said Mr. Fogo, suddenly enlightened. "You mean that this was a Lazar-house."

"That's so--a Lazarus. The leppards used to live there together, and when they died, they was berried at dead o' night down at thicky spit you sees yonder. No one had dealin's wi' 'em nor went nigh 'em, 'cept that they was allowed to make ropes. 'Tesn' so many years that the rope-walk was moved down to th' harbour mouth."

Caleb stopped rowing, and leant forward on his paddles.

"These 'ere leppards in time got to be quite a happy famb'ly--'cept, of course, they warn't happy, 'cos n.o.body wudn' have nuthin' to say to 'em. Well, the story goes as one on 'em got falled in love wi' by a very nice gal down in Troy, and one fine day she ups an' tells her sorrowin' parents that she's agoin' to marry a leppard. 'Not ef we knows et,' says they; 'we forbids the banns'; and wi' that they went off to bed thinkin' as they'd settled et. 'But,' says Parson Lasky--"

"Who was he?" interrupted Mr. Fogo.

"On'y a figger o' speech, sir, and nothin' to do wi' the yarn, as the strollin' actor said when his theayter cotched a-fire. Wot I meant was, that very night the gal gets a boat an' rows up to Kit's House, arter leavin' a letter to say as she'd drownded hersel'. An' there she lived in hidin', 'long wi' the leppards for the rest of her days, which, by the tale, warn't many, an' she an' her sweetheart was berried in wan grave." Caleb paused for breath.

"And the ghosts?"

said Mr. Fogo, much interested.

"Some ha' seed her rowin' about here in a boat, o' dark nights; and others swear to seein' all the leppards a-marchin' down wi' her corpse to the berryin'-ground. Leastways, that's the tale.

Jan Spettigue was the last as seed 'em, but as he be'eld three devils on his own chimbly-piece the week arter, along o' too much rum, p'r'aps he made a mistake. Anyways, 'tes a moral yarn, an' true to natur'. These young wimmen es a very detarmined s.e.x, whether 'tes a leppard in the case or a Rooshan."

Mr. Fogo had fallen into a reflective silence.

"'Tes a thousand pities this 'ere place should be empty, wi' a lean-to Crystal Pallis--by which I means a conserva-tory, sir--an'

gardens, an' room for a cow, an' a Pyll o' ets own--"

"A what?"

"Pyll, sir, otherwise a creek--'c, r, double e, k--an arm o' the sea,' as the spellin' book says."

A curious fascination stole over Mr. Fogo as he looked earnestly at the house round which these memories hung. Standing on an angle formed by the bending river, and the little creek, and behind a screen of trees--elms almost too old to feel the sap of spring, a chestnut or two, and a few laurels and sombre firs, that had cracked with their roots the grey garden wall and sprawled down to the beach below--the stained and yellow frontage looked down towards the busy harbour, as it seemed with a sense of serene decay, haunted but without disquietude, like the face of an old lady who has memories and lives in them, though she deigns to contemplate a life from which her hopes, with her old friends and lovers, have dropped out.

Perhaps Mr. Fogo had some sympathy with this mood; for Caleb, after waiting some time for his reply, took to his paddles again with a will, and presently the boat, sweeping round a projecting rock, pa.s.sed into a very different scene.

Here the river, shut in on the one side with budding trees to the water's edge, on the other with bracken and patches of ploughed land to where the cliffs broke sheer away, stretched for some miles without bend or break. Far ahead a blue bank of woodland closed the view. Not a sound disturbed the stillness, not a sail broke the placid expanse of water.

But a true Trojan must still be talking. Presently Caleb resumed.

"'Tes a luvly spot, as you said, sir. Mr. Moggridge down at the customs--he's a poet, as maybe you know--has written a mint o' verses about this 'ere place. 'Natur', he says:--"

"Natur' has 'ere a.s.soomed her softest garb; 'Ere would I live an' die

"--which I calls a very touchin' sentiment, an' like what they says in a n.i.g.g.e.r song."

With such conversation Mr. Trotter beguiled the way until they came abreast of a tiny village almost buried in apple trees and elms.

On the opposite bank, a thin column of blue smoke was curling up from among the dense woodland.

Caleb headed the boat for this smoke, ran her nose on the pebbles beneath a low cliff, and stepped out.

"'Ere we are, sir."