Arthur Quiller-Couch

“ The future might hold degradation, poverty of the sharpest, hard work for a pittance of daily bread; but at least his dismissal would send him back to a life in which lay somewhere these meanings that trembled like visions of light in the heart of Vashti's talk. They gave him glimpses of the heaven which, by their remembered rays, he must seek for himself. How many years had he wasted—how many years!
They moored the boat close under the cliff's shadow, and, climbing the rocks, between the cove and the East Porth, sat down to wait. ”

“ But you put a strain upon a man, you do—talkin' of children in that way. Children?" The man paused with something like a groan. An instant before it had been in his mind to tell Sir Cæsar passionately that, so far from grudging the time spent in fetching Annet, Linnet and Matthew Henry from school, he looked forward to it as the one bright break in a day that began before sunrise and lasted till after sunset. It had been on the tip of his tongue, too, to say, with equal passion, that any man who spoke of them as savages insulted his wife's care of them. ”

“ Vashti looked across the Sound with a smile. "It seems almost comic somehow that anyone should dream of attacking them!"
"Ah!" said he, almost bitterly, "you have been living in great cities and enlarging your mind."
"And in great cities, you imply, it is easy to despise, to forget?" She laughed softly. "Brefar—Saaron—Inniscaw!" she murmured, addressing the Islands by name, "here is one who tells me I forget you! Sir, we will take a boat this very day, and I will sail you out to the Off Islands and prove to you if I forget." ”

“ It isn't a man's voice, but a woman's ... unless the fog.... Hi, there! Help! Here are two ladies.... Why, it's—it's Mrs. Treacher!"
For the fog had parted suddenly, and through it, as through a breach in a wall, stepped Mrs. Treacher with a lantern, which she held up close to their faces.
"Eh? Mrs. Pope and Miss Gabriel? Well, I declare!"
"Bless you, Mrs. Treacher! But, however came you here?"
"Why not?" asked Mrs. Treacher, after a pause.
"Here, in the churchyard!... You don't tell me you've lost your way, too?"
"No, I don't," answered Mrs. Treacher, shortly, lifting her lantern. ”

“ The Commandant walked up the road with a hot heart: past the Barracks and beyond them to the down, where a ruined windmill overlooked the sea. He wanted to be alone, and up here he could count upon solitude. He wanted to walk off his ill-humour. But the ascent was steep, and he, alas! no longer a young man; and at the windmill he was forced to stand still and draw breath.
At his feet lay the Islands, bathed in the light of a fast-reddening October sunset. Against such a sunset, if the air be very clear, you may see them from the cliffs of the mainland—a low, dark cloud out in the Atlantic ”

“ Half an hour's exploration of the cave, the cove, the cliff-face, had yielded no further clue. Mr. Rogers drew off his men, and, embarking them, started to search the shore to the westward.
By this time some thirty boats had gathered, and through the long night, in every creek and cranny of the shore, from the extreme east of Inniscaw to the extreme west of Brefar, the search went on. The wind, chopping to the north-west, rose to a stiff breeze, and not only blew bitterly cold, with squalls of rain and sleet, but raised a sea that made it dangerous to explore the rocks closely. ”

“ Eli Tregarthen looked up as though a stone had struck him. The colour on his face darkened. Hitherto (though suffering from it) he had not argued, even in his own mind, against Sir Cæsar's evicting him from Saaron. He had resented it, as one resents mere brute force; but he had not argued with that which had never presented itself as resting upon argument.... Though he knew himself to be a slow-witted man, Eli had a clear sense of his wife's wisdom, and that wisdom irradiated for him any argument which came—as this accusation of neglecting the children surely came—within range of Ruth. ”

“ If Sergeant Archelaus ever afterwards spoke disparagingly of the Lord Proprietor's activities that night, something may be forgiven him; as something may be forgiven the Lord Proprietor—for on such occasions men blurt out what rises to their lips.
The fog had found its way into Treacher's bugle before our three heroes reached the quay; but he continued to blow his best; and there, at the end of the causeway, Sir Cæsar ran into them—ran straight into the Commandant, almost knocking out his breath—calling, as he ran, for someone to take bow oar in the lifeboat. ”

“ With you it all rests in your work. Fifteen years knock holes in your fortifications, tumble your guns into the sea, send along a new generation of men to pull down what you have built, to rebuild in a flurry of haste, and see their work in its turn criticised and condemned by yet a new company of builders. At this we women only look on and marvel. Why all this fuss, we ask, over what you do? Why all this hopeful, hopeless craving to leave something permanent? The Islands, here, will outlast anything you can build. ”

“ Surely a voice—a woman's voice—singing up to him from the depth!
Was he awake or dreaming?... Beyond all doubt someone was singing, down there: a mournful, wordless song. He was no judge of music, but it seemed to him that, let alone the mystery of the singer, he had never heard a voice so wonderful. It rose and fell with the surge of the tide.
The Lord Proprietor laid down his gun. He had come to a shelving slope that descended like a funnel or the half of a broken crater, narrowing to a dark pit, in which the sea heaved gently, but with a sound as of a monster sobbing ”

“ If they meant so much to him what must they mean to her who had left home, dear ones, and all memories of youth?—and who, returned from exile, stood with her hand upon the latch of the old cupboard!
"Ruth will have changed," said Vashti, speaking aloud, but to herself. "It is impossible that she has not changed."
She dipped her paddles and began to pull, gently at first and almost languidly; but by and by strength came into her arms and the boat began to move at a pace that astonished the Commandant. ”

“ Thus the boy grew up into a strong, slow man, gentle of manners, shy of the sound of his own voice, but tenacious of purpose and stubborn when his will was crossed. Except for the few months when he went wooing after Ruth Cara—in the year after his mother's death—his life, hopes, purposes, dreams and waking thoughts concentrated themselves upon Saaron, and from the day he brought his bride home to it the island became more than ever his sufficing world. ”

“ She laid down her burden. "Oh, you needn't fear to look about you! The men folk be all off to the wreck, and won't be back till Lord knows when."
Miss Gabriel, however, was not looking about her. Her gaze, following the ray of the lamp as she held it aloft, travelled across the stooping shoulders of Mrs. Treacher and fastened itself upon a garment of gaudily-striped woolwork—her antimacassar—lying across the arm of the sofa where the Commandant had tossed it impatiently.
"Terribly messy a man always is when left to himself," said Mrs. Treacher, rising and stepping to a corner cupboard. ”

“ It would never do to abandon the family grievance merely because it presented a bright side. They felt, as older folks have been known to feel, that a sense of injury carries with it a sense of importance.
"I wonder," said Linnet, severely, "that you can have the heart to talk about it, Jan."
"Jan has no feelings about leaving Saaron," said Annet, more in sorrow than in anger. "Why should he—coming from the mainland?"
"But Jan was born on the Islands," Matthew Henry objected; "and that will be a long time ago."
"Silly! As if you could belong to the Islands by being born here! ”

“ From Garland Town, from St. Ann's, from Brefar ahead of them, came wafted the sound of bells, far and faint, ringing to church, and the murmuring water in the boat's wake seemed to take up Vashti's laugh and echo it reproachfully, as she checked herself with a glance at her companion's face, which also was reproachful and sternly set, but with a slight twitch at the corners of the mouth to betray it.
"Forgive me!" she pleaded, but her voice, too, betrayed her.
"You are not penitent in the least."
"As you are only pretending to be angry. ”

“ Yes, this must be the wall of Buttershall's garden."
"Are you sure?"
"Certain. We have been bearing away to the right; people always do in a fog."
"Then if this really is Buttershall's garden—and I only hope and trust you are not mistaken—we can bear away from it to the left, on purpose, and then as likely as not we shall find ourselves going straight," reasoned Mrs. Pope, lucidly.
"My dear Charlotte"—Miss Gabriel was within an ace of calling her a fool—"if this is Buttershall's garden——"
"But a moment ago you were sure of it!" ”

“ One of these days it will certainly go, but—Lord, not yet!' We must build on what we have. We must cling to our youth, knowing that after our youth comes darkness. No, sir, I do not blame men for setting up their rest upon what they do rather than upon ourselves; but for setting it upon that part of their work which, being the more visible, the more visibly decays."
The Commandant pondered while his eyes studied the grass-grown platform. He shook his head. "You puzzle me, Miss Vashti," he confessed. ”

“ Treacher. If she could, why then she must be possessed of a secret as yet unrevealed to Mrs. Treacher's husband after thirty-odd years of married life. The Commandant, too, knew something of Mrs. Treacher ... an obstinate woman, not to say pig-headed.
Was she a witch—this stranger in silk and jewels who walked in darkness so confidently up the tortuous unpaved street?—this apparition who, coming out of the seas and the dumb fog, talked of the Islands and the Islanders as though she had known them all her life? ”

“ It lies in your sense of possession, which makes Saaron Farm there"—she waved a hand—"an eyesore in the view from this window, and simply because Eli Tregarthen has crossed your will. You defend an instinct of selfishness that takes about five minutes to pass into a principle with any man who buys land. You maintain the landlord's right to ordain the lives on your estate, and command them to be as you think best; nor does it seem to you to affect your claim for power that we understood and drew our nature from the Islands for years before ever you came to hear of them." ”

“ And Ruth was in her, for, presently, as the children's voices travelled back across the still water, Vashti heard Matthew Henry's pitched to a shrill interrogative and calling his mother by name.
"They are rowing to church, the whole family," said Vashti. "We can follow as slowly as we choose."
She listened a moment, but the oars in the boat ahead continued their regular plash. It may be that Tregarthen had failed to discern the small sail astern of him in the gloom of the land. She lowered it quietly, stowed it, found and inserted the thole-pins, and shipped the paddles. ”

“ Pope, in his turn, hesitated.
"Trousers," said Miss Gabriel, setting her face. "No, Charlotte"—she turned upon Mrs. Pope—"this is no time for mincing language. They were on a scarecrow, sir, in the very middle of the garrison garden, along with my waistcoat——"
"Your waistcoat, ma'am!"
"That is to say, with my antimacassar, which I had converted into a waistcoat and presented, in the innocence of my heart, to Treacher; the clothing of these men being nothing short of a scandal. But for scandal, sir, their clothes won't compare with their doings. ”

“ The Commandant, shaken out of his brown study, slowly concentrated his gaze on the western horizon.
"See that bank of fog? I don't know what to make of it. No wind at all; the glass steady as a rock; and a heavy swell rolling up from westward. Take hold of my glass and bring it to bear on the Monk"—this was the lighthouse guarding the westernmost reef of the Off Islands. "Every now and then a sea'll hide half the column." ”

“ Pope for confirmation—"here is a man who—to give him his due, eh?—works as hard as any on the Islands; harder, I daresay, than his own hired labourer——"
Mr. Pope nodded.
"—A man," continued Sir Cæsar, "who never gives himself a holiday; a man whose nature it is to grudge every hour of the day that isn't employed in wringing money out of a desert. Come now!"—warmed by his own eloquence to a geniality equally hearty and false, Sir Cæsar swung around again upon Mr. Pope—"I daresay we may call him, to his face, about the best of my farmers!" ”

“ The state-rooms of the farm-house—parlour, hall, and best bedrooms—looked eastward upon Cromwell's Sound; but the waters of the Sound were hidden from the lower windows by a stout hedge of tamarisk. The kitchen window at the back—by far the largest in the house, as the kitchen itself, where the family took its meals on every day but Christmas Day and Good Friday, was the true focus of the household—looked across the town-place, or farm-yard, upon another tall hedge of tamarisk, above which climbed the hill, steep, strewn with small white stones, shutting out the Atlantic. ”

“ Then a dozen or fourteen men would leap down with pitchforks and heave the red molten mass from side to side of the kiln, toiling like madmen, while the sweat ran shining down their half-naked bodies; and sometimes—and always on Midsummer Eve, which is Baal-fire night—while they laboured the women and girls would join hands and dance round the pit. In ten minutes or so all this excitement would die out, the dancers unlock their hands the men climb out of the pit and throw themselves panting on the sand, leaving the kelp to settle, cool, and vitrify. ”

“ Pope, desperately, and with conviction, "that one of us would break a limb before we finished."
"It seems to be—yes, it certainly is—a pump." Miss Gabriel's voice had begun to shake by this time, but she steadied it. "For the moment I—I half thought it might be a man."
"I would to heaven it were!" said Mrs. Pope, fervently.
"My dear Charlotte!"
"My dear Elizabeth, I mean it. And, what's more, I wouldn't care who he was. A pump? What earthly use is a pump? It must be Mumford's then, if it is a pump." ”

“ So unexpectedly her lights sprang upon them, and so close astern that Treacher, with a sharp cry of warning—for the Commandant's gaze was fastened forward—had barely time to jerk the boat's head round and avoid being cut down. Then, dropping his paddle, he made a grab at the painter and flung it, calling out to the lifeboat's crew to catch and make fast. But either he was a moment too late in flinging, or the lifeboatmen, themselves bawling instructions to the tug's crew, were preoccupied and did not hear. ”

“ But in this world it is not so easy for a man with just one penny in his pocket to stand up against an enemy solidly backed by a banking account. He feels that though his cause be right and his conscience clear, his position is precarious: that the world, if it knew the truth, would regard him almost as an imposter. The feeling may be unreasonable, the fear cowardly; but there it is, and it had cost the Commandant all his pluck to face the encounter out. Moreover, his conscience was not clear.
Sir Cæsar, too, had (all unwittingly) planted an arrow and left it to rankle. ”

“ Therefore," said Vashti, sagely, "if she feels for her husband's trouble at all, it would be not as for a trouble that afflicted them both equally; she would be sorry for him as she would be if he were hurt or diseased. And you know that silent men, like Tregarthen, when they are struck by disease, will sometimes hide it from their wives to the last possible moment—will tell no one, but least of all their wives." ”