I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales Part 3

Ruby yawned. It is true she had drawn the dimity curtains--all but a couple of inches. Through this s.p.a.ce she could see the folk busy on the beach below like a swarm of small black insects, and continually augmented by those who, having run off to s.n.a.t.c.h their Christmas dinner, were returning to the spoil. Some lined the edge of the breakers, waiting the moment to rush in for a cask or spar that the tide brought within reach; others (among whom she seemed to descry Young Zeb) were clambering out with grapnels along the western rocks; a third large group was gathered in the very centre of the beach, and from the midst of these a blue wreath of smoke began to curl up. At the same instant she heard the gate click outside, and pulling the curtain wider, saw her father trudging away down the lane.

Mary Jane, glancing up, and seeing her mistress crane forward with curiosity, stole behind and peeped over her shoulder.

"I declare they'm teening a fire!"

"Who gave you leave to bawl in my ear so rudely? Go back to your reading, this instant." (A pause.) "Mary Jane, I do believe they'm roastin' chestnuts."

"What a clever game!"

"Father said at dinner the tide was bringin' 'em in by bushels.

Quick! put on your worst bonnet an' clogs, an' run down to look.

I _must_ know. No, I'm not goin'--the idea! I wonder at your low notions. You shall bring me word o' what's doin'--an' mind you're back before dark."

Mary Jane fled precipitately, lest the order should be revoked.

Five minutes later, Ruby heard the small gate click again, and with a sigh saw the girl's rotund figure waddling down the lane. Then she picked up the book and strove to bury herself in the woes of Wilhelmina, but still with frequent glances out of window. Twice the book dropped off her lap; twice she picked it up and laboriously found the page again. Then she gave it up, and descended to the back door, to see if anyone were about who might give her news. But the town-place was deserted by all save the ducks, the old white sow, and a melancholy crew of c.o.c.ks and hens huddled under the dripping eaves of the cow-house.

Returning to her room, she settled down on the window-seat, and watched the blaze of the bonfire increase as the short day faded.

The grey became black. It was six o'clock, and neither her father nor Mary Jane had returned. Seven o'clock struck from the tall clock in the kitchen, and was echoed ten minutes after by the Dutch clock in the parlour below. The sound whirred up through the planching twice as loud as usual. It was shameful to be left alone like this, to be robbed, murdered, goodness knew what. The bonfire began to die out, but every now and then a circle of small black figures would join hands and dance round it, scattering wildly after a moment or two. In a lull of the wind she caught the faint sound of shouts and singing, and this determined her.

She turned back from the window and groped for her tinder-box.

The glow, as she blew the spark upon the dry rag, lit up a very pretty but tear-stained pair of cheeks; and when she touched off the brimstone match, and, looking up, saw her face confronting her, blue and tragical, from the dark-framed mirror, it reminded her of Lady Macbeth.

Hastily lighting the candle, she caught up a shawl and crept down-stairs. Her clogs were in the hall; and four horn lanterns dangled from a row of pegs above them. She caught down one, lit it, and throwing the shawl over her head, stepped out into the night.

The wind was dying down and seemed almost warm upon her face. A young moon fought gallantly, giving the ma.s.sed clouds just enough light to sail by; but in the lane it was dark as pitch. This did not so much matter, as the rain had poured down it like a sluice, was.h.i.+ng the flints clean. Ruby's lantern swung to and fro, casting a yellow glare on the tall hedges, drawing queer gleams from the holly-bushes, and flinging an ugly, amorphous shadow behind, that dogged her like an enemy.

At the foot of the lane she could clearly distinguish the songs, shouts, and shrill laughter, above the hollow roar of the breakers.

"They're playin' kiss-i'-the-ring. That's Modesty Prowse's laugh.

I wonder how any man _can_ kiss a mouth like Modesty Prowse's!"

She turned down the sands towards the bonfire, grasping as she went all the details of the scene.

In the glow of the dying fire sat a semicircle of men--Jim Lewarne, sunk in a drunken slumber, Calvin Oke bawling in his ear, Old Zeb on hands and knees, sc.r.a.ping the embers together, Toby Lewarne (Jim's elder brother) thumping a pannikin on his knee and bellowing a carol, and a dozen others--in stages varying from qualified sobriety to stark and shameless intoxication--peering across the fire at the game in progress between them and the faint line that marked where sand ended and sea began.

"Zeb's turn!" roared out Toby Lewarne, breaking off _The Third Good Joy_ midway, in his excitement.

"Have a care--have a care, my son!" Old Zeb looked up to shout.

"Thee'rt so good as wed already; so do thy wedded man's duty, an' kiss th' hugliest!"

It was true. Ruby, halting with her lantern a pace or two behind the dark semicircle of backs, saw her perfidious Zeb moving from right to left slowly round the circle of men and maids that, with joined hands and screams of laughter, danced as slowly in the other direction.

She saw him pause once--twice, feign to throw the kerchief over one, then still pa.s.s on, calling out over the racket:--

"I sent a letter to my love, I carried water in my glove, An' on the way I dropped it--dropped it--dropped it--"

He dropped the kerchief over Modesty Prowse.

"Zeb!"

Young Zeb whipped the kerchief off Modesty's neck, and spun round as it shot.

The dancers looked; the few sober men by the fire turned and looked also.

"'Tis Ruby Tresidder!" cried one of the girls; "'Wudn' be i' thy shoon, Young Zeb, for summatt."

Zeb shook his wits together and dashed off towards the spot, twenty yards away, where Ruby stood holding the lantern high, its ray full on her face. As she started she kicked off her clogs, turned, and ran for her life.

Then, in an instant, a new game began upon the sands. Young Zeb, waving his kerchief and pursuing the flying lantern, was turned, baffled, intercepted--here, there, and everywhere--by the dancers, who scattered over the beach with shouts and peals of laughter, slipping in between him and his quarry. The elders by the fire held their sides and cheered the sport. Twice Zeb was tripped up by a mischievous boot, floundered and went sprawling; and the roar was loud and long. Twice he picked himself up and started again after the lantern, that zigzagged now along the fringe of the waves, now up towards the bonfire, now off along the dark shadow of the cliffs.

Ruby could hardly sift her emotions when she found herself panting and doubling in flight. The chase had started without her will or dissent; had suddenly sprung, as it were, out of the ground. She only knew that she was very angry with Zeb; that she longed desperately to elude him; and that he must catch her soon, for her breath and strength were ebbing.

What happened in the end she kept in her dreams till she died.

Somehow she had dropped the lantern and was running up from the sea towards the fire, with Zeb's feet pounding behind her, and her soul possessed with the dread to feel his grasp upon her shoulders.

As it fell, Old Zeb leapt up to his feet with excitement, and opened his mouth wide to cheer.

But no voice came for three seconds: and when he spoke this was what he said--

"Good Lord, deliver us!"

She saw his gaze pa.s.s over her shoulder; and then heard these words come slowly, one by one, like dropping stones. His face was like a ghost's in the bonfire's light, and he muttered again--"From battle and murder, and from sudden death--Good Lord, deliver us!"

She could not understand at first; thought it must have something to do with Young Zeb, whose arms were binding hers, and whose breath was hot on her neck. She felt his grasp relax, and faced about.

Full in front, standing out as the faint moon showed them, motionless, as if suspended against the black sky, rose the masts, yards, and square-sails of a full-rigged s.h.i.+p.

The men and women must have stood a whole minute--dumb as stones--before there came that long curdling shriek for which they waited. The great masts quivered for a second against the darkness; then heaved, lurched, and reeled down, cras.h.i.+ng on the Raney.

CHAPTER III.

THE STRANGER.

As the s.h.i.+p struck, night closed down again, and her agony, sharp or lingering, was blotted out. There was no help possible; no arm that could throw across the three hundred yards that separated her from the cliffs; no swimmer that could carry a rope across those breakers; nor any boat that could, with a chance of life, put out among them. Now and then a dull crash divided the dark hours, but no human cry again reached the sh.o.r.e.

Day broke on a grey sea still running angrily, a tired and s.h.i.+vering group upon the beach, and on the near side of the Raney a shapeless fragment, pounded and washed to and fro--a relic on which the watchers could in their minds re-build the tragedy.

The Raney presents a sheer edge to seaward--an edge under which the first vessel, though almost grazing her side, had driven in plenty of water. Sh.o.r.ewards, however, it descends by gradual ledges.

Beguiled by the bonfire, or mistaking Ruby's lantern for the tossing stern-light of a comrade, the second s.h.i.+p had charged full-tilt on the reef and hung herself upon it, as a hunter across a fence. Before she could swing round, her back was broken; her stern parted, slipped back and settled in many fathoms; while the fore-part heaved forwards, toppled down the reef till it stuck, and there was slowly brayed into pieces by the seas. The tide had swept up and ebbed without dislodging it, and now was almost at low-water mark.

"'May so well go home to breakfast," said Elias Sweetland, grimly, as he took in what the uncertain light could show.

"Here, Young Zeb, look through my gla.s.s," sang out Farmer Tresidder, handing the telescope. He had been up at the vicarage drinking hot grog with the parson and the rescued men, when Sim Udy ran up with news of the fresh disaster; and his first business on descending to the Cove had been to pack Ruby and Mary Jane off to bed with a sound rating. Parson Babbage had descended also, carrying a heavy cane (the very same with which he broke the head of a Radical agitator in the bar of the "Jolly Pilchards," to the mild scandal of the diocese), and had routed the rest of the women and chastised the drunken. The parson was a remarkable man, and looked it, just now, in spite of the red handkerchief that bound his hat down over his ears.

"Nothing alive there--eh?"

Young Zeb, with a gla.s.s at his left eye, answered--

"Nothin' left but a frame o' ribs, sir, an' the foremast hangin' over, so far as I can see; but 'tis all a raffle o' spars and riggin' close under her side. I'll tell 'ee better when this wave goes by."