A Poor Man's House Part 14

Possible wives and mothers we turn into female creatures. And Merrie England swarms with makes.h.i.+ft folk and breakdowns.

Happily nature, heredity, sometimes intervenes, and at adolescence the sharp boy, the pride of the examination room, develops into quite a nice commonplace young man, like the missionaries' n.i.g.g.e.r boy, and is saved, if he be not already committed to an unsuitable career.

Otherwise, what mental deformity and slaughter! It was well said that education--what is called education--was the cruellest thing ever forced upon the poor. Mam Widger agrees. She knows her two boys are above the average in brains, but she says: "I'd far rather for them to fend for themselves an' make gude fishermen like their father or gude sailors like their uncles, than for 'em to be forced on by somebody else to what they ain't fitted for. 'Tis G.o.d helps them as helps themselves, they du reckon, but I can't see as he helps them as is pushed."

25

Uncle Jake allows us fine weather for the Regatta. "But when it du break up, after this yer logie [dull, hazy, calm] spell, look out!" he says. "Iss; look out!"

[Sidenote: _WINKLING_]

The day before yesterday, we were having a yarn together on the Front.

"Must go t'morrow an' pick Jemima Cayley some wrinkles [periwinkles],"

he said. "I got a lot o' work to do wi' my taties up to my plat [allotment], but I promised Jemima her should hae 'em for Regatta, an'

her shall, if I lives to get 'em. Her says my wrinkles be twice so heavy as anybody else's what her has--an' so they be, proper gert gobbets! They t'other fellows don' know where to go for 'em, but I du--master wrinkles, waiting there for Jake to pick 'em. On'y I ain't goin' to tell they beer-barrels where 'em be. Not I!--Wude yu like to come? n.o.body goes where I goes."

"Where's that?"

"Ah! Down to Longo. Yu'll see, if yu comes."

"Haven't yu got a mate for it then?"

[Sidenote: _UNCLE JAKE_]

"_Mate!_ I'd rather go be myself than wi' some o' they bladder-headed friends o' brewers. _They_ don' like wrinklin' wi' Jake; makes 'em blow too much when they has to carry a bushel o' wrinkles, like I've a-done often, over the rocks an' up the cliff, two or dree miles home. They Double-X Barrels can't du that. Lord! can't expect 'em to.--_We'll_ go in the _Moondaisy_ t'morrow, an' then if we can't sail home, we can row, an' if it comes on a fresh wind, we'll haul her up to Refuge Cove an' go'n look how my orchards be getting on."

It is good to hear Uncle Jake talk about the work that n.o.body else will do. (The exposure alone would be too much for many of them.) His face wrinkles up within its grey picture-frame beard, his keen yet wistful eyes open wide, and he draws up that youthful body of his--clad in faded blue jumper and torn trousers--on which the head of a venerable old man seems so incongruously set. He is the owner of a big drifter which hardly pays her expenses; he feels that taking out pleasure parties is no work for a fisherman--'never wasn't used to be at the beck an' call o' they sort o' people when I wer young';--and therefore he picks up a living, laborious but very independent, between high and low tide mark for many miles east and west of Seacombe. n.o.body learns exactly when or where he goes, nor what little valuables are in the old sack that he carries. He seldom sleeps for more than two hours on end; has breakfast at midnight, dinner in the early morning, and tea-supper only if it happens to be handy; and he feeds mainly on bread, cheese, sugar and much b.u.t.ter, with an occasional feast of half a dozen mackerel at once, or a skate or a small conger. Singularly straightforward in all his dealings, a little of the old West-country wrecking spirit yet survives in him, and he enjoys nothing better than smuggling jetsam past the coastguards. Social position saves no one from hearing what Uncle Jake thinks. His tongue is loaded with scorn and sarcasm, but his heart holds nothing but kindness. He will jeer and taunt a man off the Front, and give him money round the corner or food in house. His nicknames are terrible--they stick. Few would care to turn and fight such an old man, and if they did he would almost certainly knock them into the dust or throw them into the sea. He is childless; and, since her illness several years ago, his wife, an untidy woman with beautiful eyes, has been scatterbrained and more trouble than use, a spender of his savings. He nursed her himself for many months. He does most of the housework now. He may remark on his wife, if he knows you very well, but about the childlessness he never talks.

At eight in the morning we made sail with the wind just north of east.

The little _Moondaisy_ was full of sacks, old boots and gear. Past Refuge Cove we sailed, past Dog Tooth Ledge, and across the out-ground of Landlock Bay, which holds the last long stretch of pebble beach for some miles down. Uncle Jake pointed to the western end of it. "If ever yu'm catched down here by a sou'wester, yu can al'ays run ash.o.r.e, just there--calm as a mill-pond no matter how 'tis blowing. Yu can beach there when yu can't beach to Seacombe for the roughness o' the sea.

Aye, I've a-done it! But yu can't get out o' Landlock Bay, though I mind when you could climb up the cliff jest to the east'ard o' thic roozing [landslip]. Howsbe-ever, 'tis a heavy gale from the south-east on a long spring tide as'll drive 'ee out o' thic cave there where the beach urns up. Now yu knows that: 'tisn't all o'em does."

Similar bits of lore or reminiscence did he give me about every few yards of the coastline. Most merrily had the easterly wind and a following sea brought us down. Now we drew near the rocks, where at high tide the land drops sheer to the water. In the dry suns.h.i.+ne, such a sparkle was on the waves, such a s.h.i.+mmer on the high red cliffs, that it was hard to follow Uncle Jake when he said, as if he revered the place, "_'Tis_ an ironbound show! _'Tis_ a shop! Poor devils, what gets throwed up here! But I know where ther's some fine copper bolts waiting for me. I'll hae 'em! I've had some on 'em, an' I'll hae the rest when they rots out o' the timbers. Year '63 that wreck was--lovely vessel, loaded wi' corn. I mind it well. _'Twas_ a night!"

[Sidenote: _AN IRONBOUND SHOW_]

We ran the _Moondaisy_ ash.o.r.e at Brandey-Keg Cove--a little beach running up into a deep gloomy cave where the smugglers used to store their cargoes and haul them up over the cliff. "Us can walk down to Lobster Ledge an' west from there to Tatie Rock. I knows where they master gobbets be, if n.o.body an't had 'em--an' n.o.body an't. They don'

like this iron-bound shop. They leaves it to Jake. But they wuden't, if they know'd what was here."

I ate some of my breakfast while Uncle Jake was changing his boots and s.h.i.+fting his outer clothing. He would accept only one of my small cheese sandwiches. "I got some bread and b.u.t.ter here," he said, but I 'took partic'lar notice,' as Tony puts it, that he ate none of the bread and b.u.t.ter. And he refused to take a second sip of my tea because his sensitive nose detected that there had been whiskey in the bottle.

As we walked along the rocks, he placed above high-tide mark what bits of wreckage he could find, and kept a sharp look-out for any rabbits which might have fallen over the cliff. The only two we found, however, had been partially eaten by sea-gulls and rats. "Let 'em hae 'em an'

welcome," said Uncle Jake. "The winter's coming. I can't think how they poor gulls lives when all the sea round about is a hustle o' froth. I al'ays feeds 'em when I can. Don't yu think that _they_ gets hungry tu?"

At Lobster Ledge--a jumble of peaked rocks with pools between--he left his sack conspicuously on the top of a high stone, and hopped--seemed to hop--down to a pool. "They'm here!" he cried. I heard them clatter-clatter into his old cake tin, and then a tin-full rattle into his sack. On those rocks, where few can step at all without great care, he raced about, bent down double, and jumped and glided as actively as an acrobat--a veritable rock-man. "Come here!" he called. "Jest yu turn over thic stone. Ther's some there. My senses, what gobbets they be! If they ther fuddle-heads what goes nosing about Broken Rocks, on'y know'd...."

Underneath the stone, clinging to it and lying on the bed of the pool, were so many large winkles that instead of picking them out, I found it quicker to sweep up handfuls of loose stuff and then to pick out the refuse from the winkles. When Uncle Jake came across an unusually good pocket he would call me to it and hop on somewhere else. There was an element of sport in catching the dull-looking gobbets so many together.

I soon got to know the likely stones--heavy ones that wanted coaxing over,--and discovered also that the winkles hide themselves in a green, rather gelatinous weed, fuzzy like kale tops, from which they can be combed with the fingers. They love, too, a shadowed pool which is tainted a little, but not too much, by decaying vegetable matter. Uncle Jake likes the stones turned back and then replaced 'as you finds 'em.'

[Sidenote: _WHAT GOBBETS THEY BE!_]

I emptied my baler, holding perhaps a quart, into the ballast-bag. How one's back ached! How old and rheumaticy had one's knees suddenly become! Uncle Jake feels nothing of that, for all his sixty-five years.

He still skipped from pool to pool. He flung me a lobster. "There! put that in your bag for tay. Tide's dead low. The wind's dying away: sun's burnt it up. Shuden' wonder if it don't come in sou'west, an' if it du we'll hae a fair wind home along.--Well, how du 'ee like it? Eh?"

"All right."

"Ah! yu ought to be down here in the winter, like I been, when you got to put your hands wet into your pockets to get 'em warm enough to feel the gobbets--aye, to hold 'em! Then carry 'em five mile home on your back to make 'ee warm again."

So we went on: grab, grab, grab! clatter-clatter! rattle! We talked less and worked harder, because we were tired. The tide crept up. The wind veered to south-east and strengthened. "'Tis time to be off out of thees yer," said Uncle Jake. "The lop'll rise when the flid tide makes.

Yu may know everything there is to know about fis.h.i.+ng, but," he added grimly, "if yu don' know when to be off, 'twill all o'it be no gude to 'ee some day. Blast thees wind! We'll hae to row home now, or ratch out a couple o' miles to fetch in."

We shouldered our sacks for the half-mile walk to the _Moondaisy_.

Walk.... Scramble! Uncle Jake seemed to glide from rock to rock, but with two or three stone weight awkwardly perched on my shoulder, the wet running down my neck and an arm going numb, I slithered down the weed-covered slopes in a very breakneck fas.h.i.+on. I rather felt for the bladderheads who refuse to go wrinkling far from home.

[Sidenote: _CAUGHT BY THE TIDE_]

Afloat again, we used the winkles for ballast in place of s.h.i.+ngle. The lop _had_ made, and was against us. We rowed up Landlock Bay to the western side of Dog Tooth Ledge. Uncle Jake made an exclamation and stood up. "What's that? Whoever's that? There! down there to Lobster Ledge! A gen'leman an' lady, looks so. How did us come to miss they?

Look! They'm sittin' down, the fules!--Hi, yu! Hi! Hi!--They'm catched.

When yu see the water was.h.i.+ng over the Dog's Tooth, yu can't get round the ledge wi'out swimming.--Hi, yu! Hi!--They'm in for a night o'it sure, till the tide falls, if we don' take 'em round to Refuge Cove.

Ther's nowhere there where they be, to get upon land.--Hi! Hi!

Yu!--They'm mazed. An' her an't got no stockings on nuther.--Hi! hi!

Hurry up!--Can't bide here all day. The flid and the sea's making fast."

They came on at a leisurely pace. The Dog's Tooth was continuously awash. Spray broke on it. "D'yu know," said Uncle Jake when they were near enough, "that yu'm catched by the tide? Yu'm in for a night o'it on this yer beach, wi'out yu swims round the ledge or lets we row yu to the lane in Refuge Cove. Yu can't get up on land herefrom."

"Oh...." said the man. "We'd better come on board your boat then."

It took Uncle Jake nearly half-an-hour to row the three-quarters of a mile across the tide-rip on the ledge and into Refuge Cove. I carefully refrained from doing anything to lead them to suppose that they were aboard other than a fis.h.i.+ng boat. It was Uncle Jake's expedition: his the prospective reward. When I helped the man ash.o.r.e, he put some coppers into my hand. "There's threepence for the old man's tobacco,"

he said with an air of great benevolence. I was too surprised to speak: I pushed off and then burst into a laugh.

"What did 'er give 'ee?"

"Threepence. _Threepence!_ For your tobacco!"

"Thank yu. I don't use tobacco. Yu'd better keep thic donation. They'd ha' catched their death o' cold there all night, an' there ain't no other boats down here along, nor won't be. That's what they reckons their b.l.o.o.d.y lives be worth, an' that's what the lives of the likes o'

they _be_ worth, tu! Dreepence! My senses...."

We roared with laughter. It put heart into us for our stiff row home against wind, wave and tide. When I went for'ard to place the cut-rope ready, Uncle Jake had to call me aft again: spite of his strength the boat was being beaten to leeward.

It was nearly four o'clock when we had hauled up and were carrying the winkles on our backs down one of the untidy little roadways into Under Town. No dinner or high-tea was waiting for Uncle Jake. The house was unswept. How draggled the little bits of fern in the old china pots looked! The fire was out; the hearth piled up with ashes; and on the table stood a basin of potatoes in water, most of them unpeeled.

Uncle Jake came to a standstill, acutely alive in the midst of a domestic deadness. He raised himself upright beneath his load of winkles. "That's what I got to put up wi'," he said. "An't had a bite since breakfast at four by the clock this morning, 'cept thic sandwich o' yours. Tis a wonder how I du put up wi' it. I don' know for sure."

[Sidenote: _MEASURING UP_]

"Thees is what I got to put up wi'!" he repeated when Mrs Jake came in from a neighbour's.

"I forgot," she said with a gay high-pitched little laugh which had in it a tang of acquiescent despair--the echo of a mind that has ceased fighting anything, even itself.