  Produced by Al Haines. [image] Cover [image] "THERE LOOMED OUT OF THE MIST A THREE-MASTED VESSEL." (See page THE ADVENTURES A STORY OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR BY ILLUSTRATED BY W. RAINEY, R.I. LONDON BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., LD., PRINTERS, CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHAPTER THE FIRST The Village and the Towers The village of Polkerran lies snugly in a hollow between cliffs facing the Atlantic, at the head of a little bay that forms a natural harbour. The grey stone cottages rise from the sea-level in tiers, as in an amphitheatre, huddled together, with the narrowest and most tortuous of lanes between them. Through the midst a stream flows from the high ground behind, in summer a mere brook, in winter a swollen torrent that colours the sea far out with the soil it carries down. The bay is shaped like a horseshoe; at low tide its mouth is closed by a reef except at the northern end, where there is always a narrow fairway between the reef and the sharp point of land known as the Beal. Northward of this is another little inlet called Trevanion Bay, whence the coast winds north-east, a line of rugged, precipitous, and overhanging cliffs, unbroken until you come to St. Cuby's Cove, where they reach a height of three hundred feet, and bulge out over the sea like a penthouse roof. One August evening, in the year 1804, a wide tubby boat lay in twelve feet of water, just outside the line of breakers beneath the cliffs, about a mile and a half from the village. The sun had been down some two hours, but there was enough of twilight to show to any one out at sea—the boat being invisible from the land—that it contained two lads, one a tall, slight, but muscular youth of seventeen or thereabouts, the other a thicker, sturdier boy, who looked older, but was, in fact, a year or more younger than his companion. "Well, Maister Dick," said the younger boy, "I reckon we'd better go home-along; it do seem as if the water be too clear to-night." "They're not on the feed, Sam, that's certain," replied Dick Trevanion. "But I don't like going empty-handed. I'm thinking of supper." "It do be queer, sure enough. 'Tis a hot night, and they mostly comes in close when 'tis hot, and the biggest comes the closest. I 'spect what us do want is a bit of a tumble, to stir up the bottom and muddy the water." Dick Trevanion had come out at sunset with his companion Sam Pollex to fish for salmon bass, which at this time of year were usually plentiful along the coast. For two hours they had had no luck. Every now and then a ripple and spirt on the smooth surface showed that fish were sporting beneath; but though they changed the bait, trying squid, pilchard, spider-crab in turn; varied the length of line and the weight of the lead; trailed the bait where they last saw the surface disturbed—though they tried every device known to them to lure the fish, they had not as yet been rewarded with a single bite. It was exasperating. Dick knew that the larder at home was bare, and had set his heart on carrying back two or three fish for supper and next morning's breakfast. "It will be high-water in half-an-hour," he said. "We'll wait till then, and no longer." Baiting his hook with cuttle-fish, he got Sam to row slowly up the shore towards a spot where the sea broke gently over a yard or two of half-submerged rocks. The air was very still; there was no sound save the light rustle of the waves washing the foot of the cliff. As the sky darkened and the last faint radiance vanished from the west, the stars appeared and the shade beneath the cliff became deeper. Sam rowed up and down for some minutes, Dick hauling in his line once or twice to see that the hook was not fouled with sea-weed; but still there was no sign of fish. All at once, when he was on the point of giving up, he felt a slight tug at the line, which began immediately to slip through his fingers. "At last!" he whispered, jumping to his feet so hastily as to set the boat rocking. He held the line loosely until a dozen yards had run out, then tightened his grasp with a jerk. Meanwhile Sam had thrown the anchor overboard. "He's a whopper," said Dick, letting his line run again. "See; there he goes!" He pointed to a slight phosphorescent glow on the water about twenty yards away. The line was running out fast. It was only a hundred yards long, and he must check the rush of the fish, or he would lose line and all. Grasping the twine with both hands, he exerted a steady strain, at one moment being almost jerked out of the boat by the violent struggles of the fish. He set his feet against the gunwale and pulled again. With a suddenness that threw him backwards the tension relaxed. "He's gone, Sam! He's torn away the hook," he cried. "Scrounch un for a rebel!" said Sam indignantly. "Why couldn't he bide quiet!" Dick wound up his line rapidly, feeling no resistance until he had recovered about thirty yards of it. Then once more it began to slip away. "He's not gone yet, Sam, after all. I'll have him, sure as I'm alive." Steadily he worked the fish in. For a few moments he would draw in the line without resistance; then there was a jerk; it swerved to right, to left; and he could merely hold his own in the desperate struggle. But gradually, fight as the fish might, it was drawn nearer and nearer to the boat. At the broken water it spent its last energies; phosphorescent flashes showed where it was dashing to and fro in the vain effort to regain its liberty. Then, its strength exhausted, it suffered itself to be dragged slowly towards the boat. Sam was eagerly on the watch, bending over the gunwale to seize the fish as soon as it came alongside. Suddenly he flung out his hands, only to draw them back with a cry. He had pricked them against the fish's sharp dorsal fin. Once more he stooped, and as Dick hauled hard on the line, Sam got his arms beneath the fish, and with a mighty heave cast it into the bottom, where it struggled for a moment and then lay still. "A beauty, sure enough," said Sam. "Worth waiting for," remarked Dick. "'Tis getting late, and Mother will have given me up, so we'll go now. He's big enough to give us two meals at least." They bent down to disengage the hook and wind up the line. So intent had they been on the capture of the bass that neither had noticed, until that moment, a smack about three-quarters of a mile out at sea, sailing rapidly across the bay towards St. Cuby's Cove. The moon was rising, faintly illuminating the vessel, but casting a deep shadow on the water immediately beneath the cliff, so that the boys were invisible from the smack. Familiar as they were with all the small craft belonging to Polkerran, they knew at the first glance, in spite of the dim light, that the smack was a stranger. "She's not Cornish," said Dick, taking a long look at her. "Nor even English," added Sam. "Maybe a Frenchman from Rusco, though 'tis early for the running to begin." "They won't run a cargo at the Cove, surely. The path up the cliff is too steep, and Joe Penwarden's cottage too near. I think she's a stranger that doesn't know the coast." They watched the smack until she rounded the headland between them and the Cove, and then began to row in the opposite direction. They had just reached the end of the promontory bounding Trevanion Bay on the north, and had swung round landward, when, their faces now being toward the open sea, they saw something that caused them to pause in mid-stroke. Perhaps a mile in the offing like a phantom barque in the quivering radiance of the moonlight, lay a large three-masted vessel with sails aback. Through the still air came the sound of creaking tackle, and the boys, resting on their oars, saw a boat lowered, and then another, which pulled off in the same direction as the smack. "This be some jiggery, Maister Dick," said Sam. "Do 'ee think, now, it be Boney come spying for a place to land?" Those were the days when the imminence of a French invasion kept the people of the southern counties in a constant state of alarm. "Boney wouldn't come to this coast," replied Dick. "He wouldn't risk his flat boats round the Lizard. No; he'll make some lonely quiet spot on the south coast; Boney won't trouble us." "Well, daze me if I can make head or tail o't," said Sam. "Pull in a bit, so that we can see without being seen." From the shadowed headland they watched in silence. The boats had scarcely gone a third of a mile across the bay when a shrill whistle cleft the air. They at once put about, returned to the larger vessel, and were hoisted in, whereupon the ship made sail, and in the course of ten or fifteen minutes disappeared into the darkness. "There be queer things a-doing, I b'lieve," said Sam, while the vessel was still in sight. "Maybe," rejoined Dick, "but we don't know. Don't speak a word of it till I give you leave, Sam. 'Tis a matter for Mr. Mildmay if any one." "Zackly. I can keep a still tongue with any man; and now seems to I we'd best go home-along." He dipped the oars, and pulled, not towards the Beal, beyond which lay the village, but towards the head of Trevanion Bay. It was now high-water. Below the cliff only a narrow stretch of white sand was visible. Within ten yards of this beach Sam shipped oars, and the boat was carried along until its nose stuck in the sand. Both the boys then sprang out, and dragged their craft up to the base of the cliff beyond high-water mark. "'Tis lucky tide be high," said Sam, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, "for 'tis a hot night, and old boat be desp'rate heavy." "True, she's both heavy and old," said Dick, as he secured her to a post driven deep into the sand. "She's a good deal older than you or I, Sam." "Ay, true, and Feyther have give her more knocks than he've give me. You can see his marks on her, but you can't see 'em on me—hee! hee!" Dick laughed. Many a time had the planks been repaired by old Reuben Pollex, the signs of whose rough and ready handiwork were easily discoverable. Carrying his tackle, Dick ordered Sam to bring the bass, and led the way along a steep path that zigzagged up the face of the cliff, being soon hidden from the sea by knobs and corners of rock. It was a toilsome climb; the cliff was two hundred feet high, but the windings made the path three times as long. When they reached the top, Sam found it necessary once more to wipe his brow; then followed his young master across a stretch of coarse bent towards a large building, mistily lit by the moonbeams, about a hundred yards distant. The Towers, at one time a manor house of no little importance, was now in the stage of decrepitude. It had been for centuries in the possession of the Trevanions, who, in the time of King Charles I., had been a family of great wealth and influence, owning estates, it was said, in three counties. But the squire of that time had sold part of his property to provide money for the King, whose cause he espoused with unselfish loyalty, and from that time the family fortunes had gradually declined, partly through the recklessness of certain of the owners, partly through sheer ill-luck. For many years wealth had been drawn from tin and copper mines beneath the surface, parts of whose apparatus, in the shape of ruined sheds, scaffoldings, pipes, conduits, broken chains, strewed the ground in desolate abandonment. In the early manhood of the present squire, Dick's father, the lodes had shown signs of exhaustion, and Mr. Trevanion, wishing to keep the mines going as much for the sake of the miners as for his own interest, had spent large sums on opening up new workings, which proved unprofitable. He had mortgaged acre after acre in this fierce struggle with misfortune, having more than his share of the doggedness of his race; but all his efforts were fruitless; the mines were closed and the men dismissed; and the Squire himself at last had no property unencumbered except the land on which the Towers stood, and the barren cliff between the house and the end of the promontory, almost worthless save for the little grazing it afforded. To this he had clung with grim tenacity. He was often hard put to it to pay the interest on his mortgages as it became due; his little household, consisting now only of himself, his wife and son, and the two Pollexes, often had barely enough to eat; many a time he was tempted to raise money on the little remnant of his property; but for long years, as often as the temptation came, he had resisted it. Though he would not admit the fact, even to himself, superstition had a good deal to do with his determination. He scoffed at the country folks' belief in omens and witches, and professed to think nothing of an old motto which had attached to his family for near a hundred and fifty years. In the reign of Charles II., when the Trevanions owned estates not only in Cornwall, but the adjoining counties, the spendthrift whose extravagance had been a partial cause of their ruin had, at some crisis in his affairs, consulted a wise woman who lived alone in a little cottage on the moor. He brought nothing from his interview with her but the couplet:
Like his forefathers, Roger Trevanion derided the witch's counsel, but, like them, too, he had "held fast" until, a year before the opening of our story, he had been forced to relax his grip. Now every rood of the land, to the uttermost extremity of the Beal, was in the hands of mortgagees, and the dread of foreclosure weighed on the Squire like a nightmare. The Towers had been allowed to fall into decay. Only one wing was now inhabited; the remainder was ruinous, and for the most part roofless. In the south wing lived the Squire, now past fifty years of age, his wife, a few years younger, and Dick, their only son. Their sole attendants were Reuben Pollex, a widower, who had grown up from boyhood with the Squire, and steadily refused to leave him, and his boy Sam. These two did all the household work, grew vegetables, bred poultry and pigs, the sale of which, together with the small sums obtained by letting to neighbouring farmers the grazing rights of the cliff, was all that kept the family from abject poverty. Dick himself was, to a large extent, the family provider. With Sam's help he snared rabbits, shot wild fowl, and fished along the coast. His bronzed skin and hard flesh bespoke an active life in the open air, and as he went about in his jersey, rough breeches, and long boots, he would scarcely have been distinguishable from the fisher lads of the village but for a certain springiness of gait and a look of refinement and thoughtfulness. Dick and his companion hastened towards the south wing, where an unusually bright light in one of the lower rooms proclaimed that the Squire had company. While Sam took the fish, which turned out to be a fine fourteen-pounder, into the kitchen, Dick changed his boots, washed his hands, and entered the living-room. His father sat at the head of the table, his mother at the foot; between them was a man of about the Squire's age, dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, with "seaman" written on every inch of him. The table was covered with a spotless but much-darned cloth; the only viands were a loaf of bread and half a cheese. A large brown jug contained ale brewed in the family brew-house by old Pollex. "Why, Dick, how late you are!" said his mother. "We are just going to begin supper." "Better put it off for a few minutes, Mother. I've brought home a fine bass. How d'ye do, Mr. Mildmay?" "Ah, Dick, glad to see you, my boy! Good fishing to-night, eh?" "One catch after two hours, sir," replied Dick. "The weather's too fine, I suppose." "Shall we wait, Mr. Mildmay?" asked his hostess. "As you please, ma'am." Mr. Mildmay, a naval lieutenant, now in command of a revenue cutter, knew very well by the expression of the lady's face that the postponement of the meal was welcome to her. He was an old friend of the Squire's—a messmate indeed, for Mr. Trevanion had served for a few years in the Navy; and his acquaintance with the penury of the household had neither diminished his friendship nor damped the cordiality of the Squire's welcome. In these days there were few visitors to the Towers, and those who came knew what they had to expect in the way of entertainment. Such as might have looked merely for the satisfaction of the inner man had long since ceased to call. Mr. Mildmay could have supped contentedly on bread and cheese. The meagreness of the fare would have troubled Mrs. Trevanion the most, and the look upon her face told Dick how welcome was his addition to it. Dick went into the kitchen to see how Sam was getting on, and soon returned with a portion of the fish broiled and garnished with herbs. "As fine a bit of fish as I've tasted," said Mr. Mildmay, "and well cooked, upon my word." "I am glad you like it," said Mrs. Trevanion, giving Dick privately an approving smile. "You'll soon be hard at work, I suppose, sir," said Dick to the lieutenant. "Yes, no doubt I shall have a merry winter. But I wish the Commissioners would make better arrangements on land. What can I do, with miles of coast to keep an eye on? One riding-officer and a few old excisemen here and there! I can't be everywhere." "Why don't they, sir?" asked Dick. "Because every man of muscle is snapped up by the press-gang or the recruiters. Upon my word, I wish Boney would come, if he is coming. When he has had his walloping there'll be a little time to attend to our proper concerns. As it is, with this eternal war going on, the free-traders play ducks and drakes with law and ordinances." The Squire said nothing. His attitude to smuggling was one of neutrality. His training in the Navy made him in general adverse to the contraband trade; but there was a time, not very long since, when the owners of the Towers were actively engaged in it, or at least accessory to it, and the landowners along the coast regarded it with sympathy, open or secret. Indeed, it is probable that the cask of brandy in Mr. Trevanion's own cellar had never paid duty to the Crown, and old Reuben Pollex, who loved his "dish of tay," would certainly not have been able to enjoy it in that time of high prices unless he had known a little back room in Polkerran where it was easy to slip in and out secretly, and without the knowledge of the exciseman. "The smugglers are getting bolder and bolder, confound 'em," Mr. Mildmay went on. "With the land force so weak, what's the result? If I'm called to a spot, ten to one by a trick, I must leave the rest of the coast unguarded. As you know, the only man permanently in this neighbourhood is old Penwarden, who is zealous enough, but not so active as a younger man would be." "No, poor man," said Mrs. Trevanion. "He has often said to me that he fears the Government will replace him. He will cling to his duty as long as he can for the sake of his old sister. You know he supports her, in Truro, Mr. Mildmay." "I know it, and I'm not the man to put him out of a job, though one of these days a Commissioner of Customs will make his appearance, and then I'll get a wigging." All this while Dick had been considering whether he ought to tell the lieutenant about the strange vessels he had seen. He knew that smuggling was the only matter on which there was a certain constraint between his father and Mr. Mildmay. It was tacitly understood between them that the Squire would not round on the smugglers. On the other hand, the revenue officer knew that anything he told the Squire would be perfectly safe with him. He therefore discussed the subject quite openly with his old messmate, though, like a wise general, he never spoke about any plans that he had in view. Dick made up his mind to say nothing. The lieutenant's cutter was lying in the little harbour, and if he mentioned what he had seen, Mr. Mildmay would certainly hurry away and sail in chase of the stranger. What the Squire would not do, his son could not. But he had scarcely come to this decision when matters took an unexpected turn. "By the way, Squire," said the lieutenant, "I've just heard from Plymouth that the Aimable Vertu—precious fine name for a rascally privateer—is showing herself very active in the Channel. She made two captures last week, and was sighted two days ago off Falmouth, where a barque only just managed to escape her. She's said to be a vessel of extraordinary speed. The Government would give a good deal to catch her and hang her captain, that daredevil Frenchman, Delarousse; but it's with privateers as it is with smugglers: we can't be everywhere at once, and while we're fighting the French on the high seas, I suppose our home waters must be left to the enemy." This led to an exchange of reminiscences of privateer-hunting during the American war, when both were young in the service. Meanwhile Dick felt uncomfortable. What if the larger vessel he had lately seen was this very privateer, the Aimable Vertu? In that case it was no question of smuggling, but of piracy. He felt that he ought at least to mention the matter, yet hesitated to speak without consulting his father. By-and-by there came an opportunity of speaking to him privately. While Mr. Mildmay was conversing with Mrs. Trevanion, Dick slipped to the Squire's side and told him in a sentence or two what he had seen. "Mildmay," cried the Squire, "hark to this. Dick tells me that an hour or more ago he saw a strange three-master in the bay. She lowered a couple of boats, but recalled 'em, and sailed away westward. D'ye think she's the privateer?" "Dash my bones, Dick," cried the lieutenant, starting up, "why on earth didn't you speak before? Oh! I see—I see; I won't reproach you; but I'll be as mad as a hatter if 'tis the rascal and she gets away. Good night to you all; you'll excuse me, Mrs. Trevanion. Oh, you young dog!" He shook his fist at Dick, and hurried from the room. CHAPTER THE SECOND John Trevanion Returns Home About half-an-hour before Mr. Mildmay left the Squire's supper-table so hurriedly, a man laboured up the last few feet of the winding path leading from the beach of St. Cuby's Cove to the cliff-top, which he gained at a point rather more than half-a-mile from the spot where Dick and Sam had previously ascended. He was a tall man, his build and figure indicating a capacity for lithe and rapid movement, so that the heaviness of his gait was probably due solely to the size and weight of the leathern trunk he carried. Like Sam Pollex, he paused for a moment on reaching the top to recover his breath and mop his brow; then, shouldering his trunk, he struck into a narrow footpath that led over the cliff. It branched into two after a few yards, the right-hand branch going direct to the Towers, the left-hand running away from the sea to join a rough, ill-made road which led past the gate of the Towers to the village. On reaching the fork the pedestrian did not hesitate, as a stranger might have done, but took the left-hand path. After proceeding a few steps along it, however, he made a sudden half-turn, and stopped, looking across the open ground towards the Towers, where one room on the ground floor made a patch of light against the dark background of sky and sea. The man stood but a moment, then resumed his march along the path in the same direction as before. A smile wreathed his lips, and he muttered to himself. He went on at a smart pace over the level ground, turned to the right when he came to the road, passed the Towers' gates, which he observed were broken, and walked for another quarter of a mile before he again halted. Then he set his burden down by the roadside, sat upon it, and wiped his heated face, where the smile had been replaced by a frown. "I daresay I'm a fool," he muttered in a growling undertone. "Why did I chafe and gall myself with carrying this plaguey trunk? However, maybe 'tis best." While he was still resting, he heard footsteps upon his right hand, and looked round quickly. The moon was up, and he saw a young fisherman rolling along a path that ran into the road a few paces distant. "Ahoy, there!" cried the traveller in a deep and mellow voice. The fisherman, who had not as yet perceived him, came to a sudden stop as the silence of the night was broken thus unexpectedly and so near at hand; then, catching sight of the figure on the trunk, he slipped off the path on to the grass and began to run. "Ahoy, there! What ails you?" cried the man. "D'you want to earn a groat?" Reassured, apparently, at the mention of so material a thing as a groat, the fisherman turned and came slowly towards the speaker. "Did you think I was a ghost?" the stranger went on with a laugh. "I want you to carry this trunk to the village, and I'll give you a groat for your pains." "I'll do it, maister," replied the fisher, shouldering the trunk. "But ye give me a fright, that ye did." "Why, you never saw a ghost with a brown face, and a black hat, and a blue coat, not to speak of brown breeches and long boots, did you?" "I won't say I did, but the neighbours do say there be ghosteses up-along by St. Cuby's Well. Maybe yer a furriner, maister?" "No, no; I'm good Cornish like yourself," replied the man, who knew that to Cornishmen all who lived beyond the borders of the duchy were accounted foreigners. "Well, I can see plain ye be a high person, and jown me if I know why ye carry yer own bag and traipse afoot, instead o' coming a-horseback, or in a po'chay." The traveller shot a glance at the lad. He saw a rugged profile, a brow on which thought had carved no furrows, a half-open mouth: the physiognomy of a simple countryman. Then, after a scarcely perceptible pause, he said: "Well, I hate close folks who make a secret of everything, so I'll tell you. I got a lift in a travelling wagon from Newquay, but the wretch that drove it was bound for Truro, and point-blank refused to bring me farther than the cross-roads a couple of miles back. So now you know, my man, and I daresay you could tell a stranger what I've told you." "Sure and sartin. You be come from Newquay in a wagon, and when ye got to cross-roads driver said he'd be jowned if he'd carr' 'ee a step furder." "You have it pat; and now step out; 'tis getting latish." They proceeded along the silent road at a good pace toward the village, the traveller dropping a remark now and then from which the fisherman understood that he was not a complete stranger to the district. Just as they reached a spot where the road dipped somewhat steeply, there were sounds of rapid footsteps behind them, and in a few moments two men came up, one Mr. Mildmay, the revenue officer, the other an old weather-beaten fellow in seaman's clothes. He wore a black shade over his right eye, and the unnaturally short distance between his nose and the tip of his chin showed that he had lost his teeth. This was Joe Penwarden, the veteran exciseman who had been mentioned at Squire Trevanion's supper-table. On leaving the Towers, Mr. Mildmay had gone first to the right, and fetched Penwarden from his little cottage on the cliff, and then retraced his steps through the Squire's grounds. Had he been a few minutes earlier, he could hardly have failed to see the pedestrian trudging with his trunk on his shoulder along the path that ran a score of yards from Penwarden's cottage. "Halt, in the King's name!" cried Mr. Mildmay, as he overtook the two men who had preceded him along the road. |
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