A Drake by George! Part 3

Determined to reach that sycamore somehow, George complained to his uncle about the abominable condition of the churchyard; and Captain Drake reprimanded the vicar for "allowing the resting places of our historic dead to become a trackless jungle;" and the vicar once more implored the s.e.xton to give up the public-house; and the s.e.xton declared there were no such blackberries in all the parish as could be gathered from those brambles.

The matter would have ended there had it not been for Captain Drake, who visited the territory, explored to within fifteen feet of the sycamore, then called a meeting of paris.h.i.+oners and, with the aid of diagrams, showed how the foremost line of nettles was advancing so rapidly in a north-westerly direction as to threaten the main approach to the vestry; while a screen of brambles had already reached a nameless altar tomb whereon the youth of the place by traditional right recorded their initials.

The seriousness of the weed peril had not been realised until then; as the Dumpy Philosopher remarked, they had all been asleep and thus had been taken unprepared; but, when the paris.h.i.+oners did realise it, an army of offence was raised quickly; the nettles were eradicated and the brambles uprooted; that portion of the churchyard was thrown open to the public; and George attained his resting place beside the sycamore.

He had lounged against it several times before his eyes fell upon an inscription which appeared familiar, although obscured by moss and yellow lichen. As the tombstone was not more than three yards away, he was able to reach it without much difficulty. Reclining upon the turf, he summoned up energy to open his pocketknife and to sc.r.a.pe away the lichen until the full meaning of the discovery burst upon him.

Later in the day the Yellow Leaf met Squinting Jack, and said, "I saw Mr. Drake running like wildfire down the street this forenoon. If I hadn't seen 'en wi' my own eyes, I wouldn't ha' believed it."

"I saw 'en too wi' my own eyes," replied Squinting Jack. "And still I don't believe it."

Captain Drake would have run too had there been less of him. George had never been a liar--the poor fellow had no imagination and rarely picked up a newspaper--still his story sounded too impossible to be true. They reached the newly discovered tombstone; the Captain read the inscription; and in a voice trembling with emotion murmured, "Amelia Drake, of Black Anchor Farm, in this parish."

The portion of stone which bore the date of her departure had sunk into the ground.

"George, my lad," cried the Captain, "this is the grave of my long-lost great-grandmother."

"The missing link," added the nephew, with the joyous certainty of one about to negotiate a loan.

"Our pedigree is now complete. I am certain my father used to speak of a rumour which insisted that his grandmother's name was Amelia; and now we have discovered she lived in this parish, at Black Anchor Farm, which no doubt had pa.s.sed to her husband--who is down on the pedigree as having been probably lost at sea--from the lineal descendant of the great Founder himself. The name of the farm proves that. You see, George, the reference is to a black anchor, a new freshly tarred anchor, not to an old rusty red one. I must have the stone cleaned. And we will show our respect by planting roses here."

"If it hadn't been for me, this grave would never have been discovered,"

said George, ready to produce a statement of his bankruptcy.

"That's true, my lad. It's the best day's work you have ever done in your life."

"Skilled labour, too," reminded George, still advertising.

"I won't forget," his uncle promised.

Black Anchor Farm was situated about two miles from the centre of the village. It was not a place to covet, consisting of a mean little thatched house; stable and barn of cob walls propped up by pieces of timber; and half a dozen fields which brought forth furze and bracken in great abundance. People named Slack occupied the place; the man was a lame dwarf who tried to work sometimes, but honestly preferred poaching; the woman went about in rags and begged; while the children were little savages, kept from school by their father, and trained to steal by their mother.

The Captain refused to be discouraged when he visited the home of his ancestors and discovered a hovel; but wrote to the owner for information, interviewed the vicar, turned up the registers, and consulted the Yellow Leaf.

The letter was answered by a solicitor, who expressed his sorrow at never having heard of the family of Drake. The vicar mentioned that the name Anchor occurred frequently in the neighbourhood, and was undoubtedly a corruption of Anch.o.r.et, which signified a person who sought righteousness by retiring from a world of sin. He considered it probable that the site had been occupied formerly by the cell of a hermit who had distinguished himself by wearing a black cloak.

Although the Captain gave days and nights to the registers, he could find no entry concerning his family, of whom most, he was convinced, had been lost at sea, apart from the funeral of Amelia Drake. The Yellow Leaf, after remaining some days in a state of meditation, distinctly recalled a tradition concerning a lady (the Captain thanked him for the lady) who had lived alone at Black Anchor Farm for a number of years, receiving no visitors, and leaving the place only to obtain fresh supplies of liquid consolation. The end of her history was so unpleasant he did not care to dwell upon it, but apparently this lady was discovered at last ready for her funeral, and according to report it was a pity she had not been discovered earlier.

Still the Captain refused to be discouraged. His n.o.bility of character would not permit him to disown the memory of his great-grandmother, although he thought it terribly sad she should have sunk so low. If she, during recurring fits of temporary insanity, had disgraced the great name, he had added l.u.s.tre to it. If the former country residence of Sir Francis Drake had fallen into a ruinous condition, it should be his privilege to restore it with a few magic touches of the pen. He resolved to devote the remaining years of his life to the writing of _A History of the Parish of Highfield_.

"The vicar was not altogether mistaken, my love," he remarked to Mrs.

Drake. "He a.s.sociates the name of Black Anchor with a hermit who wore a dark coloured vestment of some description, and no doubt he is right. My unfortunate great-grandmother did live there entirely alone, and would naturally be regarded as a hermit by the superst.i.tious people of this parish. And we need not be surprised to discover that she always wore black--silk or velvet, I presume--the last poor remnants of her former greatness. It is an established fact, I believe, that elderly ladies generally wear black."

As a compiler of history the Captain was in many ways well equipped. He wrote rapidly, which was of great importance, because the least relevant chapter in the life of a parish required a vast number of words. He possessed a gift of making the past real because he owned a powerful imagination. While confidence in his own abilities freed him from a slavish adherence to facts which could serve no useful purpose.

Realising the importance of concentrating upon some particular feature, in order that the narrative might be made continuous, he had not the slightest difficulty in selecting that feature. The keynote of the entire work was sounded by the opening sentence:

"Although the Parish of Highfield is but little known to Englishmen, and occupies an extremely small portion of the map, being entirely excluded from the standard Atlas used in schools--in our opinion unjustifiably--it must nevertheless remain for ever famous on account of its a.s.sociations with the sublime name of Drake."

The opening chapter dealt with the destruction of the Spanish _Armada_.

The second gave an account of the arrival of Sir Francis Drake in Highfield parish, fully describing his purchase of a site and the erection of a stately manor house, of which unfortunately nothing remained except a few fragments "fraught with sweet Elizabethan memories." The site was still known as Black Anchor, which was undoubtedly the name conferred by the great Admiral upon his country residence, because he regarded it as a place to which he could retire from the world, where he could muse amid the solitude of nature, where he could rest, or, in the phrase of the seaman, "cast his anchor." It was here that Queen Elizabeth visited him, and, according to some authorities who seemed to deserve serious attention, it was here, and not in London, that the Queen conferred the honour of knighthood upon this magnificent bulwark of her throne.

The third chapter was devoted entirely to the royal visit, concerning which tradition was happily not silent. It was indeed a simple matter to follow the Queen's progress towards its culminating point, which was unquestionably Highfield Manor, as Black Anchor Farm was known in those days, through the adjoining parishes, all possessing manors of which some had survived to the present time, but most had fallen down, at each of which the royal lady had enjoyed a few hours' slumber.

Several pages were allotted to this habit of Elizabeth, who was apparently unable to travel more than five miles without going to bed; and in these the author sought to prove the existence of some malady, a kind of travelling sickness, no doubt exaggerated by the roughness of the roads and constant jolting of the coach, so that the physician in attendance felt himself compelled to advise his royal mistress to sleep at every village through which she pa.s.sed.

The peculiarities of monarchs, remarked the author, are more conspicuous than the virtues or vices of ordinary people. The nervousness of King Charles the Second was no less remarkable than Queen Elizabeth's recurring fits of somnolence: he was continually retiring into cupboards, standing behind doors, or climbing into oak trees, owing to a morbid dread of being looked at. King Charles had secreted himself inside a cupboard within the boundaries of Highfield parish, but this was not to be regarded as a coincidence, for a patient inquiry into local traditions elicited the fact that, wherever Queen Elizabeth had slept in the best bed of the manor house, King Charles had climbed a tree (usually the common oak, _Quercus robur_) in the garden. As the writer was dealing with the parish of Highfield only, it would be outside the scope of his work to give a list of villages, in Devons.h.i.+re alone, which claimed to possess pillows upon which Elizabeth had deigned to rest her weary head; but he was satisfied that the Highfield pillow had been stored away in precisely the same cupboard used by Charles during one of his secretive moments. Both these interesting relics had been destroyed, as was customary, by fire.

The fourth chapter flourished the Drake pedigree, copied from the original doc.u.ment in the author's possession; and went on to give a pathetic account of Amelia, the lonely and eccentric lady who was the last representative of the famous family to reside at Highfield Manor.

Three facts concerning her could be stated with certainty: she was of a singularly retiring nature, she was accustomed to wear a black silk dress upon all occasions, and she was murdered by some unknown ruffian for the sake of certain valuable heirlooms she was known to possess. It appeared probable that she was a poetess as, according to local tradition, she could frequently be heard singing; while her fondness for cats, a weakness which had descended to her great-grandson, was a clearly marked feature of her character.

The fifth chapter was a triumph of literary and artistic handiwork. Even Mrs. Drake, who did not approve of the undertaking because she had to meet the expenses of publication, felt bound to admit that, if William had not chosen to become a great sea-captain, a certain other William, who had written plays for a living, might conceivably have been toppled from his eminence; for nothing could have been more thrilling than the story of a family vault, "filled with the bones and memories of the greatest centuries in British history," becoming first neglected, then forgotten, and finally overgrown by brambles and nettles: a vault, let the reader remember, not containing rude forefathers of the hamlet, but members of the family of Drake; a vault, not situated in the Ethiopian desert, nor abandoned within some Abyssinian jungle, but built beneath the turf of an English churchyard hard by a simple country Bethel. This vault became entirely lost! Summer followed spring, autumn preceded winter, year after year, while the nettles increased, and the brambles encroached yet more upon the consecrated ground, until the very site of the famous vault was lost to sight--this sentence being the one literary flaw upon an otherwise perfect chapter--and the oldest inhabitant had ceased to tell of its existence.

Here the _History of the Parish of Highfield_ was interrupted by some chapters dealing with the birth, education, early struggles, voyages, adventures, success, and retirement of Captain Francis Drake; together with an account of Mrs. Drake and her relations; with a flattering notice of George Drake, Esquire, who was later to win renown as the explorer of Highfield churchyard and the discoverer of the long-missing vault. It was shown also how the Captain had been guided by Providence to the village, formerly the home of his ancestors, and how "the lure of the place had been nothing but the silver cord of an hereditary attraction stretched through the centuries to reach the golden bowl of his soul." Mrs. Drake objected to this sentence, and the printer made still stranger stuff of it; but George upheld his uncle's contention that poetical prose could not be out of place in a work dealing with the origin and progress of a wayside village.

At this point the author interpolated, by means of footnotes, a few remarks, which he owned were unconnected with the purport of his work: Domesday Book alluded to Highfield in one deplorably curt sentence; the church contained nothing of interest; an oak tree, which had formerly shaded the village green, no longer existed; the views were local, charming, and full of variety; the streams contained fish; botanists would discover furze and heather upon the adjacent moorland; the name of the place was derived probably from two Anglo-Saxon words which signified a field standing in a high place.

The author arrived at that fateful day when George, led by his interest in arboriculture to inspect a magnificent specimen of sycamore upon the south side of the churchyard, found his progress checked by tangled growths which, to the eternal disgrace of the parish, had been permitted to conceal "the precious memorial and cradle of British supremacy upon the main." Mrs. Drake opposed this sentence still more strongly, but the Captain pleaded inspiration and retained it.

There followed a stirring account of "the wave of indignation that burnt with its hot iron the souls of the villagers, when their attention had been drawn to a state of neglect which threatened to deprive them of the obvious benefits of their own burying ground, and was rapidly making it impossible for the mourner to drop the scalding tear or the fragrant flower upon the sepulchre of some dear lost one." A vivid page described the destruction of brambles and nettles, the removal of five cart loads, the subsequent bonfire in which "these emblems of Thor and Woden melted into flame and were dissipated into diaphanous smoke clouds."

The style unfortunately became confused when the author dealt at length with the actual Discovery, and represented himself as head of the family kneeling in humble thankfulness beside the mouldering stone marking the hallowed spot where Drakes lay buried.

The work included with an account of Windward House, a description of the furniture, a complete list of the antiquities, among which, owing to a printer's error, appeared the names of Kezia and Bessie; with a reference to the cats, monkeys, parrots, and giant tortoise. Then Captain Drake lay down his pen, put aside the well-thumbed dictionary, and, calling wife and nephew, informed them solemnly, "The last words are written. I have rounded off my existence with a book."

Nothing much was said for some minutes. The author was obviously struggling with emotion; Mrs. Drake put her handkerchief to her eyes; George smiled in a nervous fas.h.i.+on and trifled with the coppers in both pockets. Kezia and Bessie were called in and the news was broken to them: the Parish of Highfield now possessed a history.

"This," said the Captain gently, "is one of the great moments in the thrilling record of a most distinguished family. I feel as the sublime founder must have done while standing with wooden bowl in his hand gazing across the sparkling sea." Then he murmured brokenly, "Heaven bless you all," and stumbled from the room.

When the publisher sent in his estimate, Mrs. Drake was quite unable to understand how a newspaper could be sold for one halfpenny. The leading item, which was a charge for sufficient paper to print one thousand copies, came as a revelation to her; for she had always supposed that paper, like string and pins, could be had for nothing. As the publisher pressed strongly for a few ill.u.s.trations of local scenery, the Captain was compelled to sacrifice, for economical reasons, three chapters of his voyages, together with the whole of his valuable footnotes. When George suggested that the history of the parish itself did not appear to be treated with that fullness the Captain was capable of giving it, the old gentleman replied, "What we lose in the letterpress we'll make up by the pictures. I quite agree with the printer, my lad: the beauty and dignity of my work will be enhanced considerably by the addition of a few engravings."

Six photographs were therefore taken exclusively for this volume, by the son of the postmistress who was an expert with the camera; and reproduced by the usual special process upon a particularly valuable kind of Oriental paper. The frontispiece represented Captain Francis Drake in a characteristic att.i.tude. The five other ill.u.s.trations depicted Windward House from the southeast; present day aspect of Black Anchor Farm; George Drake, Esquire, discoverer of the missing vault; stone marking site of vault and bearing the name of Amelia Drake; and finally, Captain Francis Drake in another characteristic att.i.tude, with Mrs. Drake in the background. The lady, having s.h.i.+fted behind her husband during the moment of exposure, has disappeared entirely.

Two copies were sold. The vicar bought one out of a sense of duty, while the Dismal Gibcat purchased the other, to discover whether there was anything in it which would justify him in bringing an action for libel.

Both were disappointed.

CHAPTER IV

CHANGES IN THE ESTABLISHMENT

One doctor had promised Captain Drake eighteen more months of life; another, less generous, refused to allow him more than twelve; he presented himself with ten years, and then he did not die from natural causes. The Dismal Gibcat had his revenge at last. He murdered Captain Drake before the eyes of the village, in the full light of two oil lamps; and, instead of being hanged for it, he stepped into the dead man's place, and ruled the parish with his scowl as he had done in the good old days when a pair of old cottages had occupied the site whereon Windward House now stood; although he had the decency to attend his victim's funeral, and to declare he had always respected the Captain, who undoubtedly belonged to that cla.s.s of mortals, none of whom are ever likely to be seen again.

War for a right of way led up to the murder. The Dismal Gibcat owned a field, across which people had walked since the world began, according to the testimony of the Yellow Leaf, who was the final court of appeal in all such matters. When a stone coffin was disinterred, or a few Roman coins were turned up, the Yellow Leaf was invariably summoned to decide the question of owners.h.i.+p. He might confess that the stone coffin had been made before his time, although he would give the name of the mason, and narrate a few anecdotes concerning the eccentric paris.h.i.+oner who had preferred this method of burial. While he would possess a clear recollection of the thriftless farmer who had dropped the money while ploughing through a hole in his pocket. The Yellow Leaf declared he had crossed that field thousands of times when he was a mere bud, and went on to state that, if the people allowed the Dismal Gibcat to triumph over them, they would find themselves back in the dark ages, bereft of all the privileges which Magna Charta, the post office, and Captain Drake had obtained for them.

The Dismal Gibcat began by ploughing the field and planting it with potatoes. Then he lay in wait for the first trespa.s.ser, who chanced to be the vicar on his way to baptise a sick baby. Undismayed by the importance of his capture, the Dismal Gibcat informed the vicar he was committing an unfriendly act by trespa.s.sing across his vested property.