Wandering Heath Part 12

"'But why,' I urged, 'go farther, when work like this lies at your hand?'

"'I have thought of that; but only for a moment. It may sound presumptuous to you; I am very young; but there is bigger work for me ahead, and I am called. I cannot argue about this. I _know_.

I have a sign. Look up at the mountain, yonder--high up, above the quicksilver mines. Do you see those bright lights flas.h.i.+ng?'

"Sure enough, above the disused works a line of sparkling lights led the eye upwards to the snow-fields, as if traced in diamonds.

The phenomenon was certainly astonis.h.i.+ng, and I couldn't account for it.

"'You see it? Ah! but you didn't observe it till I spoke. n.o.body does. Miss Montmorency, when I pointed it out, declared that in all the time she has lived here she never once noticed it. Yet the first night I came here I saw it. My window looks westward, and I pulled the curtain aside for a moment before getting into bed. It had been dark as pitch when the coach dropped me; but now the moon was up, over opposite; and the first thing my eyes lit on was this line of lights reaching up the mountain. When I woke, next morning, it was still there, flas.h.i.+ng in the sun. I think it was at breakfast, when I asked Miss Montmorency about it, and found she'd never remarked it, that it first came into my head 'twas meant for me. Anyhow, the idea's fixed there now, and I can't get away from it. I've asked many people, and there's not one can explain it, or has ever remarked it till I pointed it out.'

"His hand trembled on his stick, and a fit of coughing shook him.

While we stood still I heard a banjo in a saloon across the road tinkle its long descent into the chorus of 'Juliana'--"

'Was it weary there In the wilderness?

Was it weary-y-y, 'way down in Goshen?'

The chorus came roaring out and across the street; ceased; and the banjo slid into the next verse.

"'I wish they wouldn't,' said the Bishop, taking the handkerchief from his lips and speaking (as I thought) rather peevishly.

"'It's a weariful tune.'

"'Is it? Now I don't know anything about music. It's the words that make me feel wisht.'

"'And now,' said I, 'you've eased my soul of the curiosity that has been vexing it for twenty-four hours. Your voice told you were English; but there was something in it besides--something almost rubbed out, if I may say so, by your training for the ministry.

I was wondering what part of England you hailed from, and I meant to find out without asking. You'll observe that as yet I don't even know your name. But Cornwall's your birthplace.'

"'I suppose,' he answered, smiling, 'you've only heard me called 'the Bishop.' Yes, you're quite right. I come from the north of Cornwall--from Port Isaac; and my name's Penno--John Penno.

I used to be laughed at for it at the Training College, and for my Cornish talk. They said it would be a hindrance to me in the ministry, so I worked hard to overcome it.'

"'I know Port Isaac. At least, I once spent a couple of days there.'

"'Ah?' He turned on me eagerly--with a sob, almost. 'You will have seen my folks, maybe? My father's a fisherman there--Hezekiah Penno--Old Ki, he's always called: everyone knows him.'

"I shook my head. 'The only fisherman I knew at all was called Tregay. He took me out after the pollack one day in his boat, the _Little Mercy_.'

"'That will be my mother's brother Israel. He named the boat after a sister of mine. She's grown up now and married, and settled at St.

Columb. This is wonderful! And how was Israel wearing when you saw him?'

"'You have later news of him than I can give. I am speaking of ten years ago.'

"His face fell pathetically; but he contrived a rueful little laugh as he answered: 'And I must have been a boy of nine at the time, and playing about Portissick Street, no doubt! Never mind. It's good, anyway, to speak of home to you; for you've _seen_ it, you know!'

"He said this with his eyes fixed on the flas.h.i.+ng mountain; and, as he finished, he sighed."

"During the next three or four days--for a relapse followed his rally, and he had to give up all thought of departing immediately--I talked much with the Bishop; and I think that each talk added to my respect and wonder. In the first place, though I had read in a good many poetry books of maidens who walked through all manner of deadliness unhurt--Una and the lion, you know, and the rest of them-- I hadn't imagined that kind or amount of innocence in a young man.

But what startled me even more was the size of his ambitions.

'Bishop'--_in partibus infidelium_ with a vengeance--was too small a t.i.tle for him. 'Twas a Peter the Hermit's part, or a Savonarola's, or Whitefield's at least, he was going to play all along the Pacific Slope; and his outfit no more than a small Bible and the strength of a mouse. And with all this the poor boy was just wearying for home, and every small fibre in his sick heart pulling him back while he fixed his eyes on the lights up the mountain and stiffened his back and talked about putting a hand to the plough and not turning back.

"'Hewson,' I said one morning, as we were breakfasting at the Cornice House, 'what's the cause of those curious lights up by the cinnabar mines, over Eucalyptus?'

"'Lights?' said he, 'what lights? I never heard of any.'

"'Well, it's something that flashes, anyway--a regular line of it.'

"'I'll tell you what it's _not_; and that's quicksilver,' Hewson answered.

"On my way down to Eucalyptus early that morning, I hitched my horse up to the Necropolis gate and determined to explore the secret of the lights before visiting the Bishop. The track towards the cinnabar works was pretty easy to follow, first along; but when I had climbed some four or five hundred feet it grew fainter, and was lost at length under the pine-needles. Luckily some hand had notched a tree here and there, and these guided me to the dry bed of a torrent, on the far side of which the track reappeared, and continued pretty plain for the rest of the journey, though broken in several places by the rains. I had missed my way three times at the most; but it took me three-quarters of an hour to reach the lowest of the works, and another twenty minutes to get into anything like clear country.

At length, on the edge of a steep depression that widened and shallowed as it neared the valley, I got a fair look up the slope.

So far I had met nothing to account for the lights--nothing at all, in fact, but the broken spade-handles, old boots, empty meat-cans, and other refuse of the miners' camps; but every now and then I would catch a glimpse of the hillside high overhead: and always those lights were flas.h.i.+ng there, though in varying numbers. Now, having a clear view, I found to my dismay that they had shrunk to one. It was like a story in the _Arabian Nights_. I swore, though, that I would not be cheated of this last chance. The flas.h.i.+ng object, whatever it was, lay some two hundred yards above me on the slope; and I approached cautiously, with my eyes fixed on it, much like a child hunting gra.s.shoppers in a hay-field. I was less than ten paces from it when the light suddenly vanished, and five paces more knocked the bottom out of the mystery. The object was a battered and empty meat-can.

"I had pa.s.sed a hundred such, at least, on my way. The camps had lain pretty close to the track, and the rains descending upon their refuse heaps had washed the labels off these cans, that now, as sun and moon rose and pa.s.sed over the mountain side, flashed moving signals down to Eucalyptus in the valley--signals of failure and desolation. And these had been the Bishop's pillar of fire in the wilderness!"

'Was it weary, then, In the wilderness?' . . .

"I turned and went down the track.

"At the Necropolis gate I found Captain Bill standing, with a heavy and puzzled face, beside my horse.

"'I was stepping up to Cornice House; but found your nag here, and concluded to wait. I've been waiting the best part of an hour.

What in thunder have you been doing with yourself?'

"'Prospecting,' said I. 'What's the news? Anything wrong with the Bishop?'

"'There's nothing wrong with him; and won't be, any more. He broke a blood-vessel in the night. Flo looked in early this morning, and found him sleeping, as she thought. An hour later she took him a cup of tea, and was putting it down on the table by the bed, when she saw blood on the pillow. She's powerful upset.'

"Two days later--the morning of the funeral--I met Captain Bill at the entrance of the town. He held the Bishop's small morocco-bound Bible in his hand; but for excellent reasons had made no change in his work-day attire.

"'You're attending, of course?' was his greeting. 'Say, would you like to conduct? It lay between me and Huz-'n-Buz, and he was for tossing up; but I allowed he was altogether too h.o.a.ry a sinner.

So we made him chief mourner instead, along with Flo--the more by token that he's the only citizen with a black coat to his back.

As for Flo, she's got to attend in colours, having cut up her only black gown to nail on the casket for a covering. Foolishness, of course; but she was set on it. But see here, you've only to say the word, and I'll resign to you.'

"I declined, and suggested that for two reasons he was the man to conduct the service: first, as the most prominent inhabitant of Eucalyptus; and secondly, as having made himself in a way responsible for the Bishop from the first.

"'As you like,' said he.' I told him, that first night, that I'd see him through; and I will.'

"He eyed the Bible dubiously. 'It's pretty small print,' he added.

'I suppose it's all good, now?'

"'If you mean that you're going to open the book and read away from the first full-stop you happen to light on--'

"'That's what I'd planned. You don't suppose, do you, I've had time since Tuesday to read all this through and skim off the cream?'

"'Then you'd better let me pick out a chapter for you.'

"As I took the Bible something fluttered from it to the ground.

Captain Bill stooped and picked it up.

"'That's pretty, too,' he said, handing it to me.