Tresco

“ I saw the cottages on the shore of New Grimsby harbour on the one side, and on the other the house at Merchant's Point, and the half-dozen houses scattered on the grass at Old Grimsby, that went by the name of Dolphin Town, and nowhere was there a twinkle of light.
Tresco was in bed.
We descended a little to our left, and rounded the shoulder of the hill at the eastern end of the island, through a desolate moorland of gorse; but once we had rounded the shoulder, we were in an instant amongst trees of luxuriant foliage, and in a hollow sheltered from the winds. ”

“ Leaving the track, Tresco led the way up a steep gully, thickly choked with underscrub, and dark with the boughs of giant trees. Forcing their way through tangled supple-jacks and clinging “lawyer” creepers which sought to stay their progress, the wayfarers climbed till, as day dawned, they paused to rest their wearied limbs before a sheer cliff of rock.
“It’s not very far now,” said the goldsmith, as he wiped his dripping brow. “This is the sort of work to reduce the adipose tissue, my son. D’you think you could find your way here by yourself, indomitable Jakey?” ”

“ I was running a race with Cullen Mayle, and I was beginning to think that it was not after all only on account of his peril that it was needful for me to reach Tresco before he did. These last two days I had been entirely occupied with the stimulation of that race and the inspiriting companionship of the sea. The waves foaming away from the bows and bubbling and hissing under the lee of the boat, the flaws of wind blistering the surface of the water as they came off the land towards us, making visible their invisible approach ”

“ Not a man in Tresco but would give this shed the widest of berths, and if he saw the glint of this lantern through a chink, or heard, perhaps, as he was like to do, one loud cry--why, he would only take to his heels the faster. ”

“ It was of the greatest urgency that I should set foot on Tresco before Cullen Mayle. I had to risk something to achieve that object, and I risked the wind. It was in the northeast when I started from Rockbere and suited my purpose finely if it did but hold; so that I much regretted I was not already on the sea, and rode in a perpetual fear lest it should change its quarter. ”

“ He answered, with an oath or two, that he could not lay his tongue to the occasion of our meeting.
"You swear very fluently and well," said I. "But you swore yet more fluently, I have no doubt, that morning you sailed away from St. Helen's Island without the Portuguese King's cross."
His face turned the colour of paper, he half rose from his chair and sat down again.
"I was never on Tresco," he stammered.
"Who spoke of Tresco, my friend?" said I, with a laugh. "I made mention of St. Helen's. Yet you were upon Tresco. Have you forgotten? The shed on Castle Down? The Abbey burial ground?" ”

“ But the reel digger don’t act so—it’s the loafers on the diggings gets us a bad name. I’ve dreamed of it, I’ve had reg’lar nightmares about it when I’ve bin stone-broke and without a sixpence to buy a drink.”
“What?” said Tresco. “Gold littered about like lumber, and you practically given the office to help yourself? It’s wonderful, Bill, what restraint there is in an honest mind! You can’t ever have been to Sunday School.” ”

“ You lean over a bar, an’ court beauty adorned in the latest fashion? You make love to my ‘piece’ by fixing up her jewels? Young man, you’ve begun too early. Now, look-a-here, I shall do this job myself—for love—I shall deliver this ring with my own hand.” Tresco chuckled softly, and Jake laughed out loud.
The scene had been a piece of play-acting. The apprentice, who knew his master’s weakness for the pretty bar-maid at The Lucky Digger was, as he expressed himself, “taking a rise out of the boss,” and Tresco’s simulated wrath was the crisis for which he had schemed. ”

“ The apprentice looked at his master open-mouthed.
The goldsmith went to the safe which stood in a corner of the shop, and took out some silver.
“Here’s money,” he said. “Take it. Don’t come back till next Friday. Make yourself scarce; d’you hear?”
“Right, boss. Anythin’ else?”
“Nothing. Go instanter.”
Jake vanished as if the fiend were after him, and Tresco seated himself at the bench.
Out of a drawer immediately above the leather apron of the bench he took the wax impression of something, and a square piece of brass.
“Fortune helps those who help themselves,” he muttered. ”

“ Lovyes, who was remotely akin to the Lord Proprietor, had come to Tresco three years before, immediately after her marriage, and, it was understood, at her husband's wish. I talked of her readily, for, apart from what I owed to her bounty, she was a woman most sure to engage the affections of any boy. For one thing she was past her youth, being thirty years of age, tall, with eyes of the kindliest grey, and she bore herself in everything with a tender toleration, like a woman that has suffered much. ”

“ It was none other than Benjamin Tresco who came forward. As he lowered his “swag” to the ground, he said, smiling urbanely, “How de do? I reckon you’ve jumped our claim. But we bear no malice. We’ll peg out another.”
“This ain’t ours,” said the Prospector, “not by chalks. You’re above the gorge, ain’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Moonlight, “I should reckon we must be a mile above it.”
“Where I worked,” continued Bill, “was more’n a mile below the gorge. What are you makin’?”
“A few pennyweights,” responded Moonlight.
“It looks like it!” exclaimed the Prospector, glancing at the richly-laden dish. ”

“ Are there more murderers to be lodged in gaol?—I thought they’d caught the lot.”
“There’s four of ’em in quod, boss,” replied the digger; “I guess that’s the whole gang, s’far’s Tresco’s evidence goes to prove.”
“Ah! there’s the goldsmith himself,” exclaimed the Pilot, pressing through the throng in the garden. “How d’you do, sir? I have to thank you, on behalf of my dar’ter and myself.” He gripped the goldsmith’s hand, and almost wrung it off.
“That’s all right,” said Tresco. “Yes, that’s all right. I couldn’t stand by and see an innocent man murdered. Certainly not.” ”

“ Martin's was hidden by Tresco, and more than half of Tresco by Bryher. Over the downs of Tresco rose the dome of Round Island, crowned with its white lighthouse. And over Bryher, out at sea, showed the rent and jagged crest of the great rock Menovawr. [30]
'You should land on Tresco,' said Armorel. 'There is the church to see. Oh! it is a most beautiful church. They say that in Cornwall itself there is hardly any church so fine as Tresco Church. And then there are the gardens and the lake. Everybody goes to see the gardens, but they do not walk over the down to Cromwell's Castle. ”

“ He came to Tresco while I was in London. I found him here when I came back two days ago. But I had seen him before. He had come to Tresco before. His name is George Glen."
"George Glen!" said I. "Wait a bit," and I took another look at the man in the kitchen. "He was quartermaster with Adam Mayle at Whydah, eh? He is the stranger you brought over to St. Mary's Church on the day when Cullen Mayle sat in the stocks."
"Yes," said Dick, and he asked me how I knew.
"Clutterbuck told me," I replied. ”

“ She passed by Tresco’s shop, where Jake Ruggles, worried by the inquiries of the police, and overwhelmed with orders which he could not execute, strove to act the absent goldsmith’s part. At the door of The Lucky Digger, where stood a noisy throng of men from the gold-field, she heard the words, “It never was the work of one man. If he did it, he had accomplices. How could one man lug the four of ’em up that mountain-side,” and she hurried past, knowing too well to whom the talk referred. ”

“ There's one thing more. Cullen was in league with the Brittany smugglers. He would be in league, then, with smugglers from Penzance, who would put him over to Tresco secretly, if he needed it?"
"He was very good friends with all smugglers," said Dick.
"Then," said I, rising from the ground, "we will sail back, Dick, to Tresco, and have another look into that shed."
I made him steer the boat eastwards and land behind the point of the old Grimsby Harbour, on which the Block House stands, and out of sight of Merchant's Point. It was not that I did not wish to be seen by any one in that house. ”

“ The pool fell to Carnac, and all Tresco’s money was gone.
[Pg 56] “Here’s luck,” said the Prospector, lifting his glass to Dolphin; and when he had drunk he put his stake in the middle of the table.
Carnac rattled the dice-box. “Hello!” he said. “Kitty is short by five pounds. Who’s the defaulter?”
“Me, I’m afraid, gentlemen,” said Tresco. “I’m cleaned out. ’Case of stone-broke.”
“What’s this?” exclaimed the digger. “You ain’t got a stiver left? Well, there ain’t nothing mean about me—here y’are.” He roughly divided his money, and pushed one-half across the table to Tresco. ”

“ Shivering on the damp floor of the dripping gallery, Tresco strained his ears to hear every diabolical detail of the conversation.
“Garstang, old man, Dolly’s right; you’d better see to that shirt of yours. It looks as if you’d killed a pig in it.”
“The chap I chiv’d was as fat as a pig, anyway,” said the crooked-mouthed murderer, as he attempted to rub out the guilty stains with a dirty piece of rag. “The blood spurted all over me as soon as I pulled out the knife.”
“Take it off, man; it looks as bad as a slaughterman’s,” said the leader of the gang. “Throw it in the fire.” ”

“ With the help of Scarlett, Tresco placed the digger upon the couch. In the midst of this operation the big card-player and his attenuated accomplice, whose unconsciousness had been more feigned than actual, were about to slip from the room, when Mr. Crewe’s voice was heard loudly above the chatter, “Stop! stop those men, there!” The old gentleman’s stick was pointed dramatically towards the retreating figures. “They know more about this affair than is good for them.”
Four or five men immediately seized Garsett and Lichfield, led them back to the centre of the room, and stood guard over them. ”

“ Mary's. There was no sign of Cullen Mayle at Hugh Town. No one had seen him or heard of his coming. He had not landed upon St. Mary's. I thought it possible that he might not have touched St. Mary's at all, but rowed ashore to Tresco even as I had done. But no ship had put into the Road that day but one which brought Castile soap from Marseilles. We sailed back to Tresco, and ran the boat's nose into the sand not twenty yards from the door of the house on Merchant's Point. A man, an oldish, white-haired man, loitering upon the beach very civilly helped us to run the boat up out of the water. ”

“ The digger looked at the goldsmith in astonishment.
“If I didn’t want the money, I’d chuck these bits o’ paper in the fire,” he exclaimed. “S’fer as I’m concerned the odd seventeen pound would do me, but it’s the missis down in Otago. She must ’ave a clear hundred. Women is expensive, I own, but they mustn’t be let starve. So anty up like a white man.”
“I’ll try,” said Tresco.
“If I was you I’d try blanky hard,” said the digger. “Act honest, and I’ll peg you off a claim as good as my own. Act dishonest, an’ you can go to the devil.”
Tresco had taken off his apron, and was putting on his coat. ”

“ D’you think I know how to load dice?”
“My dear, this gentleman must know everything’s square when he plays with me. When we ring again, just bring in the usual. Adieu. Au revoir. Haere ra, which is Maori. Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
As the bar-maid disappeared the digger placed a pile of bank-notes on the table, and Tresco looked at them with feigned astonishment. “If you think, mister, that I can set even money again that, you over-estimate my influence with my banker. ”

“ This he holds in his left hand, and in his right the graver with which he nicks out little pieces of gold according to design, which pieces fall into the apron of the bench—and, behold! he is engraving. The work needs contemplation, concentration, and attention; for every good goldsmith carries the details of the design in his head. But, that morning, there seemed to be none of these qualities in Benjamin Tresco. He dropped his work with a suddenness that endangered its fastenings of pitch, rapped the bench with the round butt of his graver, and glared ferociously at Jake Ruggles. ”

“ The Tresco flower-fields are, perhaps, on the whole, less picturesque than those on the other islands, on account of the careful way in which they are protected from winds and storms; but you may find many a cluster of narcissi of Nature’s own planting, wayward ones that have preferred to choose their own shelter in the lee of a pile of grey rocks jutting out into the sea, or hidden in a little copse of trees by the shore—trees slender of girth [Pg 149] and small of stature, and destined, like Peter Pan, never to grow up. ”

“ A man who can find a clue like that”—he brought the palm of his right hand down with a smack upon the table, where Tresco’s knife lay—“a man who can find that, sir, can make his way in any community!”
Just at that moment there were heavy footsteps upon the verandah, and a knocking at the front door.
Rose, who was sitting near the window, made a step or two towards the passage, but the old Pilot, who from where he stood could see through the glass of the front door, forestalled her, and she seated herself opposite the skipper and his clues. ”