Polperro

“ Gammon shouldered his way steadily, careful not to come into quarrelsome conflict. Polperro hung on behind, shouting Greenacre's name. This clamour and the loss of his hat drew attention upon him; he was a mark for squirts and missiles, to say nothing of verbal insult. St. Paul's struck the first note of twelve, and from all the bestial mob arose a howl and roar. Polperro happened to press against a drunken woman; she caught him by his disordered hair and tugged at it, yelling into his face. To release himself he bent forward, pushing the woman away ”

“ When it came to a description of Lord Polperro's accident Greenacre lost all control of himself.
"Ass! blockhead! You know no better than to let such a man in his state of health get mixed up in a crowd of roughs at midnight? Good God! He may die!"
"I shouldn't wonder a bit," returned Gammon coolly. "If he does it may be awkward for you, eh?" ”

“ Talland, midway between Polperro and Looe, was a favourite spot with these daring Polperro fellows. It offered better opportunities than those given by Polperro itself for unobserved landings; for it was—and it still is—a weird, lonely place, overhanging the sea, with a solitary ancient church well within sound of the waves that beat heavily upon the little sands. It was an easy matter to store kegs in the churchyard itself, and to take them inland, or into Polperro by the country roads, when opportunity offered, hidden in carts taking seaweed for manure to the fields. ”

“ Greenacre looked satisfied.
"Then I think you have acted very wisely indeed—as one might have expected from Miss Sparkes. I don't mean I shouldn't have expected it from you too, Gammon; but you and I are not on ceremony, old man. Now let me have your attention. We begin by admitting that Lord Polperro has put himself in a very painful position. Painful, let me tell you, in every sense. Lord Polperro desires nothing so much—nothing so much—as to be reunited to his family. He longs for the society of his wife and daughter. What more natural in a man who feels that his days are numbered! ”

“ What if Greenacre had spirited Lord Polperro away for some dark purpose of his own? Gammon himself could not help suspecting the mysterious man of deep projects which would tend to the disadvantage of Lord Polperro's forsaken wife and child. At the end of a fortnight he wrote to Greenacre at the Bilboes pressing for information. To his surprise and satisfaction this brought about an interview on the following day. Greenacre seemed radiant with a good conscience.
"All is going well," he declared. "Our noble friend is improving in health, temporarily, at all events. ”

“ Had it not been that Lord Polperro was, in a sense, a public institution, and could not escape him, he would have felt uneasy about the doings of that remarkable fellow Greenacre; as it was, he preferred to muse on the advantages certain to befall Minnie and her mother, and perchance Polly Sparkes. After all, the niece of a lord must benefit substantially by the connexion, and by consequence that young lady's husband. No one could have been freer from secondary motives than he, when he found himself falling in love with Polly ”

“ Happily he was a naturalist who recognised that the study of man is an important branch of all natural history; and geologic curiosities, interesting as they are, can hardly compete with the tales of old Polperro privateers and smugglers. Polperro built its own boats as it bred its own seamen, and both were excellent. That they were arrant smugglers was a characteristic of the times and of the locality; it is not for us to judge them. ”

“ Polperro, part of which is in the parish [Pg 44] of Talland and part in Lansallos, remains more lonely and primitive than Looe, for it is not touched by the railway, and its site offers little temptation to expansion. But it is becoming more and more sought after; artists have learned to love it and have introduced it to the art galleries; the inevitable sophistication must follow, just as Clovelly and Robin Hood's Bay have become sophisticated. ”

“ Before he knew what was happening, I had slipped them on his wrists and secured them dexterously, while the constable stepped forward. 'We have got you this time!' I cried. 'We know who you are, Dr. Polperro. You are—Colonel Clay, alias Señor Antonio Herrera, alias the Reverend Richard Peploe Brabazon.'
I never saw any man so astonished in my life! He was utterly flabbergasted. Charles thought he must have expected to get clear away at once, and that this prompt action on our part had taken the fellow so much by surprise as to simply unman him. ”

“ On a certain occasion the cutter was off Polruan, when some of the Polperro men persuaded Toms' wife to decoy him on land, solemnly assuring her that they would not touch his life, and that all they desired was to remove the only evidence that existed against Potter. ”

“ This she said like one impatient.
"They be keen men these Killigrews, and hard riders. They were only a few miles behind. If you had continued on horseback they would have seen you; this they will be sure to know."
"It will be well to start immediately after dark," I suggested. "We must take a circuitous route. I know of a safe hiding-place in the west of the county. Once there it will be easy to find out whether it will be safe for you to go to Polperro's home."
Her eyes flashed angrily into mine, but she gave no answer. ”

“ The single poplar behind the house,--Nature is jealous of proud chimneys, and always loves to put a poplar near one, so that it may fling a leaf or two down its black throat every autumn,--the one tall poplar behind the house seemed to nod and whisper to the grave square column, the elms to sway their branches towards it. ”

“ Few whose eyes are turned upward toward the trees have failed to note that exclamation-point of growth, the Lombardy poplar. Originating in that portion of Europe indicated by its common name, and, indeed, a botanical form of the European black poplar, it is nevertheless widely distributed in America. When it has been properly placed, it introduces truly a note of distinction into the landscape. Towering high in the air, and carrying the eye along its narrowly oval contour to a skyward point, it is lofty and pleasing in a park. ”

“ Pollock stood up by the fire and drew his revolver. Fighting, at least, he was not afraid of. But a man in the dark is in the best of armour. Realising the wisdom of Waterhouse’s advice, Pollock went into the tent and lay down there.
What little sleep he had was disturbed by dreams, variegated dreams, but chiefly of the Porroh man’s face, upside down, as he went out of the hut, and looked up under his arm. It was odd that this transitory impression should have stuck so firmly in Pollock’s memory. ”

“ Oh, the poplars! the poplars! How they must suffer! And how their leaves would drop, black and shrivelled, a black harvest to strew the lawn. She thought she heard the shouting of the Pinderwells, but she knew their agony would be short, and already they were silent. The poplars were still in pain, and she ran to the front of the house that she might not see them.
There was a figure coming up the track. It was John, with his trousers pulled over his night things.
"God! What's up?" he cried.
"It's the house—only the house burning. There's no one there." ”

“ There is an old servant of mine living down Poplar way with his wife who will do anything I ask him. The man has accompanied me all over the world, and he is exceedingly handy in every way. Those people would take a lodger to oblige me, and when you come to think of it, Poplar is not at all a bad place for anybody who wants to get out of the country without being observed. It is close to the river, and all sorts of craft are constantly going up and down. ”

“ The poplar is pretty only on certain summer evenings when, rising high amid the low shrubbery, it stands against the red rays of the setting sun, shining and trembling, bathed from root to top in uniform yellowish purple—or when, on a clear windy day, it rocks noisily, lisping against the blue [Pg 69] sky, and each leaf seems as if eager to tear itself away, to fly and hurry off into the distance. ”

“ But Pollock, using his revolver to parry the lightning stab which was aimed at his deltoid muscle, sent the iron dagger flying, and, firing, hit the man in the hand.
He fired again and missed, knocking a sudden window out of the wall of the hut. The Porroh man stooped in the doorway, glancing under his arm at Pollock. Pollock caught a glimpse of his inverted face in the sunlight, and then the Englishman [143] was alone, sick and trembling with the excitement of the affair, in the twilight of the place. It had all happened in less time than it takes to read about it. ”

“ He buried it before sunset on the north side of the shed he occupied, so that he should not have to pass the grave after dark when he was returning from Perera’s. He killed two snakes before he went to sleep. In the darkest part of the night he awoke with a start, and heard a pattering sound and something scraping on the floor. He sat up noiselessly, and felt under his pillow for his revolver. A mumbling growl followed, and Pollock fired at the sound. There was a yelp, and something dark passed for a moment across the hazy blue of the doorway. “A dog!” said Pollock, lying down again. ”

“ In a priceless vase near the open window they held their heads in high disdain—those four red poppies who had gleefully chuckled and chatted together on the yesterday; but the fifth and silent poppy drooped upon her breast. I turned to go; she did not stay me; I stole to the door. "Take us away with you," cried those four garrulous poppies; "we are willing to die, and at once if need be, but not here in her hateful presence. Take us away." But the poppy on her breast only drooped and drooped the more and said not a word. ”

“ I wonder if Porroh hokey-pokey upsets your luck at cards.”
He looked at Perera suspiciously.
“Very likely it does,” said Perera, warmly, shuffling. “Dey are wonderful people.”
That afternoon Pollock killed two snakes in his hammock, and there was also an extraordinary increase in the number of red ants that swarmed over the place; and these annoyances put him in a fit temper to talk over business with a certain Mendi rough he had interviewed before. The Mendi rough showed Pollock a little iron dagger, and demonstrated where one struck in the neck, in a way that made Pollock shiver ”

“ Before stopping in this birch forest I passed with my dog through a poplar grove. I confess I am not very fond of the poplar tree with its pale lilac-colored trunk and its grayish-green, metallic leaves, which it lifts high and spreads in the air like a trembling fan—I do not like the constant shaking of its round, untidy leaves, which are so awkwardly attached to long stems. ”

“ That night, as they were sitting at their fire, Pollock again tried to draw Waterhouse out on the subject of Porroh methods. “Better get to sleep,” said Waterhouse, when Pollock’s bent became apparent; “we start early to-morrow. You may want all your nerve about you.”
“But what line will he take?”
“Can’t say. They’re versatile people. They know a lot of rum dodges. You’d better get that copper-devil, Shakespear, to talk.”
There was a flash and a heavy bang out of the darkness behind the huts, and a clay bullet came whistling close to Pollock’s head. ”

“ She was smaller than the other poppies, but she looked at him with her beautiful black eye and said, "Dear little calf, I have watched you looking through the hedge every day, and I love you and will come and live in your field. Take me gently in your mouth and pull me up."
But just as he was going to do it the poppy cried out: "Quick, little calf, quick! I hear the farmer's footsteps. If he finds you here he will beat you. You must go back without me." And the little calf scrambled back through the hole in the hedge just as the farmer came up. ”

“ When in bud the sides of the leaf are rolled towards the centre, so that the under-side of the leaf, with its thick white lining, is turned outward. The young branches and buds are also thickly covered with fine white down.
The Poplar leaves never seem to be still; they dance and sparkle in the sunshine, and even on quiet days you will see them fluttering. In autumn these leaves turn golden yellow before they fall.
The wood of the White Poplar is too quickly grown to be very durable. It is largely used for making children’s toys, because it does not readily split when nails are driven into it. ”

“ Then Pollock remembered that he first noticed them the night after the fight in the hut. “It’s my opinion he don’t want to kill you,” said Perera—“at least not yet. I’ve heard deir idea is to scare and worry a man wid deir spells, and narrow misses, and rheumatic pains, and bad dreams, and all dat, until he’s sick of life. Of course, it’s all talk, you know. You mustn’t worry about it.... But I wonder what he’ll be up to next.”
“I shall have to be up to something first,” said Pollock, staring gloomily at the greasy cards that Perera was putting on the table. ”

“ The homesickness and redness of weeping had gone forever from her eyes, for they were looking now upon the King in his beauty! In her hand, now cold and waxen, she held one little silky poppy, red with edges of white. Polly had gone home.
There was a whisper among the poppies that grew behind the cookhouse that morning as the first gleam of the sun came yellow and wan over the fields; there was a whisper and a shivering among the poppies as the morning breezes, cold and chill, rippled over them, and a shower of crystal drops mingled with the crimson petals that fluttered to the ground. ”