Baring-Gould Sabine
In the Roar of the Sea
CHAPTER XI
JESSAMINE
“How are you, old man?”
“Middlin’, thanky’; and how be you, gov’nor?”
“Middlin’ also; and your missus?”
“Only sadly. I fear she’s goin’ slow but sure the way of all flesh.”
“Bless us! ’Tis a trouble and expense them sort o’ things. Now to work, shall we? What do you figure up?”
“And you?”
“Oh, well, I’m not here on reg’lar business. Huntin’ on my own score to-day.”
“Oh, ay! Nice port this.”
“Best the old fellow had in his cellar. I told the executrix I should like the taste of it, and advise thereon.”
The valuers for dilapidations, vulgarly termed dilapidators, were met in the dining-room of the deserted parsonage. Mr. Scantlebray was on one side, Mr. Cargreen on the other. Mr. Scantlebray was on that of the “orphings,” as he termed his clients, and Mr. Cargreen on that of the Rev. Mr. Mules, the recently nominated rector to S. Enodoc.
Mr. Scantlebray was a tall, lean man, with light gray eyes, a red face, and legs and arms that he shook every now and then as though they were encumbrances to his trunk and he was going to shake them off, as a poodle issuing from a bath shakes the water out of his locks. Mr. Cargreen was a bullet-headed man, with a white neckcloth, gray whiskers, a solemn face, and a sort of perpetual “Let-us-pray” expression on his lips and in his eyes – a composing of his interior faculties and abstraction from worldly concerns.
“I am here,” said Mr. Scantlebray, “as adviser and friend – you understand, old man – of the orphings and their haunt.”
“And I,” said Mr. Cargreen, “am ditto to the incoming rector.”
“And what do you get out of this visit!” asked Mr. Scantlebray, who was a frank man.
“Only three guineas as a fee,” said Mr. Cargreen. “And you?”
“Ditto, old man – three guineas. You understand, I am not here as valuer to-day.”
“Nor I – only as adviser.”
“Exactly! Taste this port. ’Taint bad – out of the cellar of the old chap. Told auntie I must have it, to taste and give opinion on.”
“And what are you going to do to-day?”
“I’m going to have one or two little things pulled down, and other little things put to rights.”
“Humph! I’m here to see nothing is pulled down.”
“We won’t quarrel. There’s the conservatory, and the linney in Willa Park.”
“I don’t know,” said Cargreen, shaking his head.
“Now look here, old man,” said Mr. Scantlebray. “You let me tear the linney down, and I’ll let the conservatory stand.”
“The conservatory – ”
“I know; the casement of the best bedroom went through the roof of it. I’ll mend the roof and repaint it. You can try the timber, and find it rotten, and lay on dilapidations enough to cover a new conservatory. Pass the linney; I want to make pickings out of that.”
It may perhaps be well to let the reader understand the exact situation of the two men engaged in sipping port. Directly it was known that a rector had been nominated to S. Enodoc, Mr. Cargreen, a Bodmin valuer, agent, and auctioneer, had written to the happy nominee, Mr. Mules, of Birmingham, inclosing his card in the letter, to state that he was a member of an old-established firm, enjoying the confidence, not to say the esteem of the principal county families in the north of Cornwall, that he was a sincere Churchman, that deploring, as a true son of the Church, the prevalence of Dissent, he felt it his duty to call the attention of the reverend gentleman to certain facts that concerned him, but especially the Church, and facts that he himself, as a devoted son of the Church, on conviction, after mature study of its tenets, felt called upon, in the interest of that Church he so had at heart, to notice. He had heard, said Mr. Cargreen, that the outgoing parties from S. Enodoc were removing, or causing to be removed, or were proposing to remove, certain fixtures in the parsonage, and certain out-buildings, barns, tenements, sheds, and linneys on the glebe and parsonage premises, to the detriment of its value, inasmuch as that such removal would be prejudicial to the letting of the land, and render it impossible for the incoming rector to farm it himself without re-erecting the very buildings now in course of destruction, or which were purposed to be destroyed: to wit, certain out-buildings, barns, cattle-sheds, and linneys, together with other tenements that need not be specified. Mr. Cargreen added that, roughly speaking, the dilapidations of these buildings, if allowed to stand, might be assessed at £300; but that, if pulled down, it would cost the new rector about £700 to re-erect them, and their re-erection would be an imperative necessity. Mr. Cargreen had himself, personally, no interest in the matter; but, as a true son of the Church, etc., etc.
By return of post Mr. Cargreen received an urgent request from the Rev. Mr. Mules to act as his agent, and to act with precipitation in the protection of his interests.
In the meantime Mr. Scantlebray had not been neglectful of other people’s interest. He had written to Miss Dionysia Trevisa to inform her that, though he did not enjoy a present acquaintance, it was the solace and joy of his heart to remember that some years ago, before that infelicitous marriage of Mr. Trevisa, which had led to Miss Dionysia’s leaving the rectory, it had been his happiness to meet her at the house of a mutual acquaintance, Mrs. Scaddon, where he had respectfully, and, at this distance of time, he ventured to add, humbly and hopelessly admired her; that, as he was riding past the rectory he had chanced to observe the condition of dilapidation certain tenements, pig-sties, cattle-sheds, and other out-buildings were in, and that, though it in no way concerned him, yet, for auld lang syne’s sake, and a desire to assist one whom he had always venerated, and, at this distance of time might add, had admired, he ventured to offer a suggestion: to wit, That a number of unnecessary out-buildings should be torn down and utterly effaced before a new rector was nominated, and had appointed a valuer; also that certain obvious repairs should be undertaken and done at once, so as to give to the parsonage the appearance of being in excellent order, and cut away all excuse for piling up dilapidations. Mr. Scantlebray ventured humbly to state that he had had a good deal of experience with those gentlemen who acted as valuers for dilapidations, and with pain he was obliged to add that a more unscrupulous set of men it had never been his bad fortune to come into contact with. He ventured to assert that, were he to tell all he knew, or only half of what he knew, as to their proceedings in valuing for dilapidations, he would make both of Miss Trevisa’s ears tingle.
At once Miss Dionysia entreated Mr. Scantlebray to superintend and carry out with expedition such repairs and such demolitions as he deemed expedient, so as to forestall the other party.
“Chicken!” said Mr. Cargreen. “That’s what I’ve brought for my lunch.”
“And ’am is what I’ve got,” said Mr. Scantlebray. “They’ll go lovely together.” Then, in a loud tone – “Come in!”
The door opened, and a carpenter entered with a piece of deal board in his hand.
“You won’t mind looking out of the winder, Mr. Cargreen?” said Mr. Scantlebray. “Some business that’s partick’ler my own. You’ll find the jessamine – the white jessamine – smells beautiful.”
Mr. Cargreen rose, and went to the dining-room window that was embowered in white jessamine, then in full flower and fragrance.
“What is it, Davy?”
“Well, sir, I ain’t got no dry old board for the floor where it be rotten, nor for the panelling of the doors where broken through.”
“No board at all?”
“No, sir – all is green. Only cut last winter.”
“Won’t it take paint?”
“Well, sir, not well. I’ve dried this piece by the kitchen fire, and I find it’ll take the paint for a time.”
“Run, dry all the panels at the kitchen fire, and then paint ’em.”
“Thanky’, sir; but, how about the boarding of the floor? The boards’ll warp and start.”
“Look here, Davy, that gentleman who’s at the winder a-smelling to the jessamine is the surveyor and valuer to t’other party. I fancy you’d best go round outside and have a word with him and coax him to pass the boards.”
“Come in!” in a loud voice. Then there entered a man in a cloth coat, with very bushy whiskers. “How d’y’ do, Spargo? What do you want?”
“Well, Mr. Scantlebray, I understand the linney and cow-shed is to be pulled down.”
“So it is, Spargo.”
“Well, sir!” Mr. Spargo drew his sleeve across his mouth. “There’s a lot of very fine oak timber in it – beams, and such like – that I don’t mind buying. As a timber merchant I could find a use for it.”
“Say ten pound.”
“Ten pun’! That’s a long figure!”
“Not a pound too much; but come – we’ll say eight.”
“I reckon I’d thought five.”
“Five! pshaw! It’s dirt cheap to you at eight.”
“Why to me, sir?”
“Why, because the new rector will want to rebuild both cattle-shed and linney, and he’ll have to go to you for timber.”
“But suppose he don’t, and cuts down some on the glebe?”
“No, Spargo – not a bit. There at the winder, smelling to the jessamine, is the new rector’s adviser and agent. Go round by the front door into the garding, and say a word to him – you understand, and – ” Mr. Scantlebray tapped his palm. “Do now go round and have a sniff of the jessamine, Mr. Spargo, and I don’t fancy Mr. Cargreen will advise the rector to use home-grown timber. He’ll tell him it sleeps away, gets the rot, comes more expensive in the long run.”
The valuer took a wing of chicken and a little ham, and then shouted, with his mouth full – “Come in!”
The door opened and admitted a farmer.
“How do, Mr. Joshua? middlin’?”
“Middlin’, sir, thanky’.”
“And what have you come about, sir?”
“Well – Mr. Scantlebray, sir! I fancy you ha’n’t offered me quite enough for carting away of all the rummage from them buildings as is coming down. ’Tis a terrible lot of stone, and I’m to take ’em so far away.”
“Why not?”
“Well, sir, it’s such a lot of work for the bosses, and the pay so poor.”
“Not a morsel, Joshua – not a morsel.”
“Well, sir, I can’t do it at the price.”
“Oh, Joshua! Joshua! I thought you’d a better eye to the future. Don’t you see that the new rector will have to build up all these out-buildings again, and where else is he to get stone except out of your quarry, or some of the old stone you have carted away, which you will have the labor of carting back?”
“Well, sir, I don’t know.”
“But I do, Joshua.”
“The new rector might go elsewhere for stone.”
“Not he. Look there, at the winder is Mr. Cargreen, and he’s in with the new parson, like a brother – knows his very soul. The new parson comes from Birmingham. What can he tell about building-stone here? Mr. Cargreen will tell him yours is the only stuff that ain’t powder.”
“But, sir, he may not rebuild.”
“He must. Mr. Cargreen will tell him that he can’t let the glebe without buildings; and he can’t build without your quarry stone: and if he has your quarry stone – why, you will be given the carting also. Are you satisfied?”
“Yes – if Mr. Cargreen would be sure – ”
“He’s there at the winder, a-smelling to the jessamine. You go round and have a talk to him, and make him understand – you know. He’s a little hard o’ hearing; but the drum o’ his ear is here,” said Scantlebray, tapping his palm.
Mr. Scantlebray was now left to himself to discuss the chicken wing – the liver wing he had taken – and sip the port; a conversation was going on in an undertone at the window; but that concerned Mr. Cargreen and not himself, so he paid no attention to it.
After a while, however, when this hum ceased, he turned his head, and called out:
“Old man! how about your lunch?”
“I’m coming.”
“And you found the jessamine very sweet?”
“Beautiful! beautiful!”
“Taste this port. It is not what it should be: some the old fellow laid in when he could afford it – before he married. It is passed, and going back; should have been drunk five years ago.”
Mr. Cargreen came to the table, and seated himself. Then Mr. Scantlebray flapped his arms, shook out his legs, and settled himself to the enjoyment of the lunch, in the society of Mr. Cargreen.
“The merry-thought! Pull with me, old man?”
“Certainly!”
Mr. Scantlebray and Mr. Cargreen were engaged on the merry-thought, each endeavoring to steal an advantage on the other, by working the fingers up the bone unduly, when the window was darkened.
Without desisting from pulling at the merry-thought each turned his head, and Scantlebray at once let go his end of the bone. At the window stood Captain Coppinger looking in at the couple, with his elbow resting on the window-sill.
Mr. Scantlebray flattered himself that he was on good terms with all the world, and he at once with hilarity saluted the Captain by raising the fingers greased by the bone to his brow.
“Didn’t reckon on seeing you here, Cap’n.”
“I suppose not.”
“Come and pick a bone with us?”
Coppinger laughed a short snort through his nostrils.
“I have a bone to pick with you already.”
“Never! no, never!”
“You have forced yourself on Miss Trevisa to act as her agent and valuer in the matter of dilapidations.”
“Not forced, Captain. She asked me to give her friendly counsel. We are old acquaintances.”
“I will not waste words. Give me her letter. She no longer requires your advice and counsel. I am going to act for her.”
“You, Cap’n! Lor’ bless me! You don’t mean to say so!”
“Yes. I will protect her against being pillaged. She is my housekeeper.”
“But see! she is only executrix. She gets nothing out of the property.”
“No – but her niece and nephew do. Take it that I act for them. Give me up her letter.”
Mr. Scantlebray hesitated.
“But, Cap’n, I’ve been to vast expense. I’ve entered into agreements – ”
“With whom?”
“With carpenter and mason about the repairs.”
“Give me the agreements.”
“Not agreements exactly. They sent me in their estimates, and I accepted them, and set them to work.”
“Give me the estimates.”
Mr. Scantlebray flapped all his limbs, and shook his head.
“You don’t suppose I carry these sort of things about with me?”
“I have no doubt whatever they are in your pocket.” Scantlebray fidgeted.
“Cap’n, try this port – a little going back, but not to be sneezed at.”
Coppinger leaned forward through the window.
“Who is that man with you?”
“Mr. Cargreen.”
“What is he here for?”
“I am agent for the Reverend Mules, the newly appointed rector,” said Mr. Cargreen, with some dignity.
“Then I request you both to step to the window to me.”
The two men looked at each other. Scantlebray jumped up, and Cargreen followed. They stood in the window-bay at a respectful distance from Cruel Coppinger.
“I suppose you know who I am?” said the latter, fixing his eyes on Cargreen.
“I believe I can form a guess.”
“And your duty to your client is to make out as bad a case as you can against the two children. They have had just one thousand pounds left them. You are going to get as much of that away from them as you are permitted.”
“My good sir – allow me to explain – ”
“There is no need,” said Coppinger. “Suffice it that you are one side. I – Cruel Coppinger – on the other. Do you understand what that means?”
Mr. Cargreen became alarmed, his face became very blank.
“I am not a man to waste words. I am not a man that many in Cornwall would care to have as an adversary. Do you ever travel at night, Mr. Cargreen?”
“Yes, sir, sometimes.”
“Through the lanes and along the lonely roads?”
“Perhaps, sir – now and then.”
“So do I,” said Coppinger. He drew a pistol from his pocket, and played with it. The two “dilapidators” shrank back. “So do I,” said Coppinger; “but I never go unarmed. I would advise you to do the same – if you are my adversary.”
“I hope, Captain, that – that – ”
“If those children suffer through you more than what I allow” – Coppinger drew up his one shoulder that he could move – “I should advise you to consider what Mrs. Cargreen will have to live on when a widow.” Then he turned to Scantlebray, who was sneaking behind the window-curtain.
“Miss Trevisa’s letter, authorizing you to act for her?”
Scantlebray, with shaking hand, groped for his pocket-book.
“And the two agreements or estimates you signed.”
Scantlebray gave him the letter.
“The agreements also.”
Nervously the surveyor groped again, and reluctantly produced them. Captain Coppinger opened them with his available hand.
“What is this? Five pounds in pencil added to each, and then summed up in the total? What is the meaning of that, pray?”
Mr. Scantlebray again endeavored to disappear behind the curtain.
“Come forward!” shouted Captain Cruel, striking the window-sill with the pistol.
Scantlebray jumped out of his retreat at once.
“What is the meaning of these two five pounds?”
“Well, sir – Captain – it is usual; every one does it. It is my – what d’y’ call it! – consideration for accepting the estimates.”
“And added to each, and then charged to the orphans, who pay you to act in their interest – so they pay wittingly, directly, and unwittingly, indirectly. Well for you and for Mrs. Scantlebray that I release you of your obligation to act for Mother Dunes – I mean Miss Trevisa.”
“Sir,” said Cargreen, “under the circumstances, under intimidation, I decline to sully my fingers with the business. I shall withdraw.”
“No, you shall not,” said Cruel Coppinger, resolutely. “You shall act, and act as I approve; and in the end it shall not be to your disadvantage.”
Then, without a word of farewell, he stood up, slipped the pistol back into his pocket, and strode away.
Mr. Cargreen had become white, or rather, the color of dough. After a moment he recovered himself somewhat, and, turning to Scantlebray, with a sarcastic air, said —
“I hope you enjoy the jessamine. They don’t smell particularly sweet to me.”
“Orful!” groaned Scantlebray. He shook himself – almost shaking off all his limbs in the convulsion – “Old man – them jessamines is orful!”
CHAPTER XII
THE CAVE
Some weeks slipped by without bringing to Judith any accession of anxiety. She did not go again to Pentyre Glaze, but her aunt came once or twice in the week to Polzeath to see her. Moreover, Miss Dionysia’s manner toward her was somewhat less contrary and vexatious, and she seemed to put on a conciliatory manner, as far as was possible for one so angular and crabbed. Gracious she could not be; nature had made it as impossible for her to be gracious in manner as to be lovely in face and graceful in movement.
Moreover, Judith observed that her aunt looked at her with an expression of perplexity, as though seeking in her to find an answer to a riddle that vexed her brain. And so it was. Aunt Dunes could not understand the conduct of Coppinger toward Judith and her brother. Nor could she understand how a child like her niece could have faced and defied a man of whom she herself stood in abject fear. Judith had behaved to the smuggler in a way that no man in the whole countryside would have ventured to behave. She had thrown him at her feet, half killed him, and yet Cruel Coppinger did not resent what had been done; on the contrary, he went out of his way to interfere in the interest of the orphans. He was not the man to concern himself in other people’s affairs; why should he take trouble on behalf of Judith and her brother? That he did it out of consideration for herself, Miss Trevisa had not the assurance to believe.
Aunt Dunes put a few searching questions to Judith, but drew from her nothing that explained the mystery. The girl frankly told her of her visit to the Glaze and interview with the crippled smuggler, of his offer to her of some of his spoil, and of her refusal to receive a present from him. Miss Trevisa approved of her niece’s conduct in this respect. It would not have befitted her to accept anything. Judith, however, did not communicate to her aunt the closing scene in that interview. She did not tell her that Coppinger had kissed her hand, nor his excuse for having done so, that he was offering homage to a queen.
For one thing, Judith did not attach any importance to this incident. She had always heard that Coppinger was a wild and insolent man, wild and insolent in his dealings with his fellow-men, therefore doubtless still more so in his treatment of defenceless women. He had behaved to her in the rude manner in which he would behave to any peasant girl or sailor’s daughter who caught his fancy, and she resented his act as an indignity, and his excuse for it as a prevarication. And, precisely, because he had offended her maidenly dignity, she blushed to mention it, even to her aunt, resolving in her own mind not to subject herself to the like again.
Miss Trevisa, on several occasions, invited Judith to come and see her at Pentyre Glaze, but the girl always declined the invitation.
Judith’s estimate of Cruel Coppinger was modified. He could not be the utter reprobate she had always held him to be. She fully acknowledged that there was an element of good in the man, otherwise he would not have forgiven the injury done him, nor would he have interfered to protect her and Jamie from the fraud and extortion of the “dilapidators.” She trusted that the stories she had heard of Coppinger’s wild and savage acts were false, or overcolored. Her dear father had been misled by reports, as she had been, and it was possible that Coppinger had not really been the impediment in her father’s way that the late rector had supposed.
Jamie was happy. He was even, in a fashion, making himself useful. He helped Mr. Menaida in his bird-stuffing on rainy days; he did more, he ran about the cliffs, learned the haunts of the wild-fowl, ascertained where they nested, made friends with Preventive men, and some of those fellows living on shore, without any very fixed business, who rambled over the country with their guns, and from these he was able to obtain birds that he believed Mr. Menaida wanted. Judith was glad that the boy should be content, and enjoy the fresh air and some freedom. She would have been less pleased had she seen the companions Jamie made. But the men had rough good-humor, and were willing to oblige the half-witted boy, and they encouraged him to go with them shooting, or to sit with them in their huts.
Jamie manifested so strong a distaste for books, and lesson time being one of resistance, pouting, tears, and failures, that Judith thought it not amiss to put off the resumption of these irksome tasks for a little while, and to let the boy have his run of holidays. She fancied that the loss of his father and of his old home preyed on him more than was actually the case; and believed that by giving him freedom till the first pangs were over, he might not suffer in the way that she had done.
For a fortnight or three weeks Judith’s time had been so fully engaged at the parsonage, that she could not have devoted much of it to Jamie, even had she thought it desirable to keep him to his lessons; nor could she be with him much. She did not press him to accompany her to the rectory, there to spend the time that she was engaged sorting her father’s letters and memoranda, his account-books and collection of extracts made from volumes he had borrowed, as not only would it be tedious to him, but he would distract her mind. She must see that he was amused, and must also provide that he was not at mischief. She did take him with her on one or two occasions, and found that he had occupied himself in disarranging much that she had put together for the sale.
But she would not allow him wholly to get out of the way of looking to her as his companion, and she abandoned an afternoon to him now and then, as her work became less arduous, to walk with him on the cliffs or in the lanes, to listen to his childish prattle, and throw herself into his new pursuits. The link between them must not be allowed to become relaxed, and, so far as in her lay, she did her utmost to maintain it in its former security. But, with his father’s death, and his removal to Mr. Menaida’s cottage, a new world had opened to Jamie; he was brought into association with men and boys whom he had hardly known by sight previously, and without any wish to disengage himself from his sister’s authority, he was led to look to others as comrades, and to listen to and follow their promptings.
“Come, Jamie,” said Judith, one day. “Now I really have some hours free, and I will go a stroll with you on the downs.”
The boy jumped with pleasure, and caught her hand.
“I may take Tib with me?”
“Oh yes, certainly, dear.”
Tib was a puppy that had been given to Jamie by one of his new acquaintances.
The day was fresh. Clouds driving before the wind, now obscuring the sun and threatening rain, then clearing and allowing the sun to turn the sea green and gild the land. Owing to the breeze the sea was ruffled and strewn with breakers shaking their white foam.
“I am going to show you something I have found, Ju,” said the boy. “You will follow, will you not?”
“Lead the way. What is it?”
“Come and see. I found it by myself. I shan’t tell any one but you.”
He conducted his sister down the cliffs to the beach of a cove. Judith halted a moment to look along the coast with its mighty, sombre cliffs, and the sea glancing with sun or dulled by shadow to Tintagel Head standing up at the extreme point to the northeast, with the white surf lashing and heaving around it. Then she drew her skirts together, and descended by the narrow path along which, with the lightness and confidence of a kid, Jamie was skipping.
“Jamie!” she said. “Have you seen? – there is a ship standing in the offing.”
“Yes; she has been there all the morning.”
Then she went further.
The cove was small, with precipitous cliffs rising from the sand to the height of two to three hundred feet. The seagulls screamed and flashed to and fro, and the waves foamed and threw up their waters lashed into froth as white and light as the feathers on the gulls. In the concave bay the roar of the plunging tide reverberated from every side. Neither the voice of Jamie, when he shouted to his sister from some feet below, nor the barking of his little dog that ran with him, could be distinguished by her.
The descent was rapid and rugged, yet not so precipitous but that it could be gone over by asses or mules. Evidence that these creatures had passed that way remained in the impression of their hoofs in the soil, wherever a soft stratum intervened between the harder shelves of the rock, and had crumbled on the path into clay.
Judith observed that several paths – not all mule-paths – converged lower down at intervals in the way by which she descended, so that it would be possible, apparently, to reach the sand from various points in the down, as well as by the main track by which she was stepping to the beach.
“Jamie!” called Judith, as she stood on the last shoulder of rock before reaching the beach over a wave-washed and smoothed surface. “Jamie! I can see that same ship from here.”
But her brother could not hear her. He was throwing stones for the dog to run after, and meet a wave as it rushed in.
The tide was going out: it had marked its highest elevation by a bow of foam and strips of dark seaweed and broken shells. Judith stepped along this line, and picked out the largest ribbon of weed she could find. She would hang it in her bedroom to tell her the weather. The piece that had been wont to act as barometer was old, and, besides, it had been lost in the recent shift and confusion.
Jamie came up to her.
“Now, Ju, mind and watch me, or you will lose me altogether.”
Then he ran forward, with Tib dancing and yelping round him. Presently he scrambled up a shelf of rock inclined from the sea, and up after him, yelping, scrambled Tib. In a moment both disappeared over the crest.
Judith went up to the ridge and called to her brother.
“I cannot climb this, Jamie.”
But in another moment, a hundred yards to her right, round the extremity of the reef, came Tib and his master, the boy dancing and laughing, the dog ducking his head, shaking his ears, and, all but laughing also, evidently enjoying the fun as much as Jamie.
“This way, Ju!” shouted the boy, and signed to his sister. She could not hear his voice, but obeyed his gestures. The reef ran athwart the top of the bay, like the dorsal, jagged ridge of a crocodile half buried in the sand.
Judith drew her skirts higher and closer, as the sand was wet, and there were pools by the rock. Then, holding her ribbon of seaweed by the harsh, knotted root, torn up along with the leaf, and trailing it behind her, she followed her brother, reached the end of the rock, turned and went in the traces of Jamie and Tib in the sand parallel to her former course.
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, on the right hand there opened before her, in the face of the cliff, a cave, the entrance to which was completely masked by the ridge she had turned. Into this cave went Jamie with his dog.
“I am not obliged to follow you there!” protested Judith; but he made such vehement signs to her to follow him that she good-humoredly obeyed.
The cave ran in a long way, at first at no great incline, then it became low overhead, and immediately after the floor inclined rapidly upward, and the vault took a like direction. Moreover, light appeared in front. Here, to Judith’s surprise, she saw a large boat, painted gray, furnished with oars and boat-hook. She was attached by a chain to a staple in the rock. Judith examined her with a little uneasiness. No name was on her.
The sides of the cave at this point formed shelves, not altogether natural, and that these were made use of was evident, because on them lay staves of broken casks, a four-flanged boat-anchor, and some oars. Out of the main trunk cave branched another that was quite dark, and smaller; in this, Judith, whose eyes were becoming accustomed to the twilight, thought she saw the bows of a smaller boat, also painted gray.
“Jamie!” said Judith, now in serious alarm; “we ought not to be here. It is not safe. Do – do come away at once.”
“Why, what is there to harm us?”
“My dear, do come away.” She turned to retrace her steps, but Jamie stopped her.
