Penryn

“ The Killigrews wished to develop their property. They said it was absurd that vessels had not a nearer port than Penryn or Truro; and Sir Walter having just put in to this fine natural harbour, saw the golden side of their suggestion; and cared not a jot about the loss of trade to those other towns. But Truro, Penryn, and Helston, alive to their own interests, had long thrown their weight into the opposition scale; and London was some seven days' journey to the east. Therefore the building operations of the sturdy Killigrews had been brought to a standstill.
It is easy to picture the scene. ”

“ Whereupon John Penryn asked many questions, which they answered so cunningly that I was tongue-tied, and could say nothing except foolish, wild ejaculations.
"Go, Jasper Pennington," he said at length, "leave me here."
[Pg 349]
"No," I said; "I came to find Naomi, my love. I will see her before I go. She has promised to be my wife."
"His wife!" cried Richard Tresidder's mother. "Think of it. He possesses not one stick. He is a wild vagabond, a terror wherever he goes. How can Naomi Penryn become his wife?" ”

“ I saw, however, that presently they looked at the men who stood near, and who as yet had not spoken a word.
"I do not think you will find physical force of much use," went on Mr. Penryn quietly, "for even if Jasper Pennington could not fell an ox with one blow of his arm, and you could get rid of us by the means you are considering, it would be of no use. Think you we have come here without precautions? I knew better than that."
Then I remembered that he had spoken to Eli Fraddam when I had sent him away. I saw what he meant now, although at the time I wondered what he had to say to the dwarf. ”

“ I lived in happy forgetfulness of everything, save the love-joy that filled my life. The birds fluttered hither and thither on the twigs which grew so thickly around, and finally settled to rest, while the insects ceased to hum as the night descended, but I scarcely heeded them. I lay among the ferns, my head pillowed on a moss-covered stone, and thought of Naomi Penryn. I did not care who she was; I did not think. Why should I? For I believe that when God sends love into our hearts, it does not matter as to name and lineage. ”

“ Penryn, still busy at its wharves with the exporting of granite, is the site of Glasney College, where most of the old miracle plays performed at the various plan-an-guares throughout the county were written. But the main industry of the Roseland towns and villages is connected with mines and quarries, the acme of arid desolation and dreariness being reached at Gwennap. The mines there are of great depth, have been worked for centuries, have produced in tin and copper during the last hundred years at least ten million pounds sterling, and are now all abandoned. ”

“ Gluvias, by Penryn, is said to be the warmest place in England. The Sailors' Home, on the quay by Arwenack, gives earnest of these warm conditions. It is a great, grim, eighteenth-century mansion of red brick, but made beautiful, almost transfigured indeed, by a wonderful fuchsia, covering the whole of the frontage up to the first-floor windows.
In the humblest cottage-gardens grows the fuchsia. It flourishes even in the merest cobble-stoned [93] backyards, enclosed within white-washed walls, and neighboured by the washing-stool and tub, and the clothes hung out to dry ”

“ Grain, timber, coal and guano and other manures are imported, and granite, china clay, copper ore, ropes and fish exported. Falmouth is also in favour as a watering-place. The parliamentary borough of Penryn and Falmouth returns one member. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. ”

“ GURNEY, Samuel, Esq., M.P., F.R.G.S.
2nd s. of late Samuel Gurney, Esq. of Upton, Essex, by Elisabeth, dau. of James Sheppard, Esq.; b. 1816; first cousin of John Henry Gurney, Esq., M.P. for Lynn Regis; m. 1837, Ellen, dau. of Wm. Reynolds, Esq. of Carshalton, Surrey. Partner in firm of Overend, Gurney, and Co., bankers and money-dealers. M.P. (liberal) for Penryn and Falmouth since 1857. J.P. for Surrey; director of Atlantic, Mediterranean Extension, and Submarine Telegraph Companies (Reform and City Clubs; Lombard-street; Carshalton, Surrey) .
27. HOGHTON, Sir Henry Bold, Bart. ”

“ PENROD sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, his wistful dog.
A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces known by a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude, that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had come into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand every thing, mere defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay hold upon. ”

“ RUPE COLLINS
FOR several days after this, Penrod thought of growing up to be a monk, and engaged in good works so far as to carry some kittens (that otherwise would have been drowned) and a pair of Margaret's outworn dancing-slippers to a poor, ungrateful old man sojourning in a shed up the alley. And although Mr. Robert Williams, after a very short interval, began to leave his guitar on the front porch again, exactly as if he thought nothing had happened, Penrod, with his younger vision of a father's mood, remained coldly distant from the Jones neighbourhood. ”

“ For his laughter-loving little schoolmates spared him not—neither boy nor girl.
“Yay, Penrod!” they shouted. “How's your beautiful hair?” And, “Hi, Penrod! When you goin' to get your parents' consent?” And, “Say, blue stars in heaven, how's your beautiful eyes?” And, “Say, Penrod, how's your tree-mores?” “Does your tree-mores thrill your bein', Penrod?” And many other facetious inquiries, hard to bear in public.
And when he reached the temporary shelter of his home, he experienced no relief upon finding that Margaret was out for lunch. ”

“ Penrod went home.
“Well,” Mrs. Schofield said, having almost exhausted a mother's powers of suggestion, “well, why don't you give Duke a bath?” She was that far depleted when Penrod came to her the third time.
Mothers' suggestions are wonderful for little children but sometimes lack lustre when a boy approaches twelve an age to which the ideas of a Swede farm-hand would usually prove more congenial. However, the dim and melancholy eye of Penrod showed a pale gleam, and he departed. He gave Duke a bath. ”

“ Perrin out of the house, down the long, white road, down to the sea. Here they were in that little cove where Traill and Miss Desart had been that afternoon. They sat with their backs against the rocks, and in all the air there was a strange, uncertain light, and the sea came over the shore in sullen, dreamy movements, as a tired woman's fingers move when she is sewing. ”

“ All this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed the Child Sir Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed semi-circular audience of little girls. Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence.
“What you got on,” inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing information, “under that ole golf cape?”
Penrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his questioner would have approached him with deference, even with apprehension. But to-day the Child Sir Galahad was somewhat intoxicated with the power of his own beauty. ”

“ The Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped hands before their Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great uplift; in a moment he would have to throw aside his mantle, but even so he was protected and sheltered in the human garment of a man. His stage-fright had passed, for the audience was but an indistinguishable blur of darkness beyond the dazzling lights. ”

“ THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE
NEXT morning Penrod woke in profound depression of spirit, the cotillon ominous before him. He pictured Marjorie Jones and Maurice, graceful and light-hearted, flitting by him fairylike, loosing silvery laughter upon him as he engaged in the struggle to keep step with a partner about four years and two feet his junior. It was hard enough for Penrod to keep step with a girl of his size. ”

“ After one glance at great-uncle Slocum, Penrod did not linger to attempt any explanation—there are times when even a boy can see that apologies would seem out of place. Penrod ran round the house to the backyard.
Here he was enthusiastically greeted by Duke. “You get away from me!” Penrod said hoarsely, and with terrible gestures he repulsed the faithful animal, who retired philosophically to the stable, while his master let himself out of the back gate. Penrod had decided to absent himself from home for the time being. ”

“ Penrod was less conspicuous than he thought himself, but he was so preoccupied with his own shame, steeling his nerves to meet the first inevitable taunting reference to his sister's stockings, that he failed to perceive there were others present in much of his own unmanned condition. Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance, he managed to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing it round him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed the rest of his costume. ”

“ UNCLE JOHN
MISS SPENCE gasped. So did the pupils. The whole room filled with a swelling, conglomerate "O-o-o-o-h!"
As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with his mouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words that he had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any other who heard them.
Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so loves to play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance of order and training, it may prove but a base and shifty servant. And Penrod's mind was not his servant ”

“ Don't worry about that!"
"Well, suppose it was a boy, then: what'd you do if a boy come up to you and says, 'Hello, little gentleman'?"
"He'd be lucky," said Penrod, with a sinister frown, "if he got home alive."
"Suppose it was a boy twice your size?"
"Just let him try," said Penrod ominously. "You just let him try. He'd never see daylight again; that's all!" ”

“ Penny replied glaring at her own reflection in the car mirror. “At any rate, I saved the car for you.”
“That accusation was ridiculous, Penny. Mrs. Deline is a wealthy woman who could buy herself a dozen cars in ordinary times. She merely gave in to a sudden whim.”
“Just what do you know about Mrs. Deline, Dad?”
“Not a great deal,” Mr. Parker admitted. “I met her at the club. She served as a special War correspondent in China, I believe. She has traveled all over the world and speaks a half dozen languages.”
“I never heard of her until she came to Riverview,” Penny said with a sniff. ”

“ After dinner, Penrod was slightly scalded in the back as the result of telling Della, the cook, that there was a wart on the middle finger of her right hand. Della thus proving poor material for his new manner to work upon, he approached Duke, in the backyard, and, bending double, seized the lowly animal by the forepaws.
“I let you know my name's Penrod Schofield,” hissed the boy. He protruded his underlip ferociously, scowled, and thrust forward his head until his nose touched the dog's. “And you better look out when Penrod Schofield's around, or you'll get in big trouble! ”

“ But—so blind sometimes are parents—neither Mr. nor Mrs. Palfrey suspected that Penny would have anything to say to a tradesman of questionable rank whose youthful bloom was much withered. Young Towers, they thought, had an eye to her, and that was likely enough to be a match some day; but Penny was a child at present. And all the while Penny was imagining the circumstances under which Mr. Freely would make her an offer: perhaps down by the row of damson-trees, when they were in the garden before tea; perhaps by letter—in which case, how would the letter begin? “Dearest Penelope?” ”

“ Weems prepared such a good lunch,” Penny argued. “I thought—”
“We can use the food after we make camp,” Mr. Parker decided briskly. “A warm meal will be much better.”
Penny subsided into hurt silence. Since the party had left Riverview she felt that she had been pushed far into the background. Mrs. Deline had made no attempt to talk to her. On the other hand, the widow fairly hypnotized Mr. Parker with her dazzling smile and conversation.
“Dad,” Penny began, determined to get in a word, “just before you came home this afternoon, something queer happened.” ”

“ Mamma, there have been lots of times when I haven't been thankful for Penrod, but to-day I could have got down on my knees to you and papa for giving me such a brother!”
In the darkness of the hall, as a small but crushed and broken form stole away from the crack in the door, a gigantic Eye seemed to form—seemed to glare down upon Penrod—warning him that the way of vengeance is the way of bafflement, and that genius may not prevail against the trickeries of women. ”

“ A gust of wind caught Penny’s felt hat, carrying it cartwheeling down the beach. She and Jerry raced in pursuit, colliding as they pounced on it together. They laughed, and as the reporter pulled the hat over Penny’s flying hair, he kissed her quickly on the cheek.
Then before she could reprimand him, he exclaimed: “Wow! That wind really is getting strong! Let’s get back to the car before we blow away!” ”

“ Penny assured him hastily.
“How may I ask?”
“Maybe by catching a Headless Horseman,” Penny grinned mischievously. “It seems that one is galloping wild out Red Valley way.”
[12]
“Red Valley? Never heard of the place.” Mr. Parker began to show irritation. “Penny, what are you talking about anyway?”
“This,” explained Penny, spreading the clipping on the desk. “An old fellow who looked like Rip Van Winkle gave it to me. Then he disappeared before I could ask any questions. What do you think, Dad?”
Mr. Parker read the advertisement at a glance. “Bunk!” he exploded. “Pure bunk!” ”