Produced by Al Haines.
Cover]
"THERE LOOMED OUT OF THE MIST A THREE-MASTED VESSEL."(_See page_ 175.)]
THE ADVENTURES OF DICK TREVANION
_A STORY OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR_
BY HERBERT STRANG
_ILLUSTRATED BY W. RAINEY, R.I._
LONDON HENRY FROWDE HODDER & STOUGHTON 1911
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER THE FIRST THE VILLAGE AND THE TOWERS
CHAPTER THE SECOND JOHN TREVANION RETURNS HOME
CHAPTER THE THIRD THE BLOW FALLS
CHAPTER THE FOURTH THE CAVE OF SEALS
CHAPTER THE FIFTH ST. CUBY'S WELL
CHAPTER THE SIXTH PENWARDEN DOES HIS DUTY
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH THE BREACH WIDENS
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH A LIGHT ON THE MOOR
CHAPTER THE NINTH DOUBLEDICK'S MIDNIGHT GUESTS
CHAPTER THE TENTH THE FIRE BELL AT THE TOWERS
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH SIR BEVIL INTERVENES
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH PENWARDEN DISAPPEARS
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH CROSS-CURRENTS
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH DOUBLEDICK ON DUTY
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH ACROSS THE PIT
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH A PACKET FOR RUSCO
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH PETHERICK MAKES A DISCOVERY
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH A HIGH DIVE
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH A BARGAIN WITH THE REVENUE
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH THE LAST DEAL
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST THE ATTACK ON THE TOWERS
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND JOHN TREVANION IN THE TOILS
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD THE PRICE OF TREACHERY
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH PEACE AND GOODWILL
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"THERE LOOMED OUT OF THE MIST A THREE-MASTED VESSEL" . . . . . ._Frontispiece, see page_ 175
"'HALT, IN THE KING'S NAME!' CRIED MR. MILDMAY"
"'STAND!' CRIED DICK, DASHING FORWARD. 'LEAVE HIM, OR WE'LL FIRE'"
"AS THE SEAL PLUNGED INTO THE SEA, SAM BROUGHT HIS HAMMER DOWN"
"THERE WAS NO ONE TO HEAR THE SHORT DIALOGUE THAT ENSUED AT THE HEAD OFTHE WELL"
"DICK RUSHED LIKE A WHIRLWIND ON THE MAN"
"PETHERICK'S HEAD APPEARED THROUGH THE HATCH"
"DELAROUSSE RUSHED HEADLONG TOWARDS THE APPROACHING GROUP"
CHAPTER THE FIRST
The Village and the Towers
The village of Polkerran lies snugly in a hollow between cliffs facingthe 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 anamphitheatre, huddled together, with the narrowest and most tortuous oflanes between them. Through the midst a stream flows from the highground behind, in summer a mere brook, in winter a swollen torrent thatcolours the sea far out with the soil it carries down. The bay isshaped like a horseshoe; at low tide its mouth is closed by a reefexcept at the northern end, where there is always a narrow fairwaybetween the reef and the sharp point of land known as the Beal.Northward of this is another little inlet called Trevanion Bay, whencethe coast winds north-east, a line of rugged, precipitous, andoverhanging cliffs, unbroken until you come to St. Cuby's Cove, wherethey reach a height of three hundred feet, and bulge out over the sealike a penthouse roof.
One August evening, in the year 1804, a wide tubby boat lay in twelvefeet 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 sometwo hours, but there was enough of twilight to show to any one out atsea--the boat being invisible from the land--that it contained two lads,one a tall, slight, but muscular youth of seventeen or thereabouts, theother a thicker, sturdier boy, who looked older, but was, in fact, ayear or more younger than his companion.
"Well, Maister Dick," said the younger boy, "I reckon we'd better gohome-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 comesin close when 'tis hot, and the biggest comes the closest. I 'spectwhat us do want is a bit of a tumble, to stir up the bottom and muddythe water."
Dick Trevanion had come out at sunset with his companion Sam Pollex tofish for salmon bass, which at this time of year were usually plentifulalong the coast. For two hours they had had no luck. Every now andthen a ripple and spirt on the smooth surface showed that fish weresporting beneath; but though they changed the bait, trying squid,pilchard, spider-crab in turn; varied the length of line and the weightof the lead; trailed the bait where they last saw the surfacedisturbed--though they tried every device known to them to lure thefish, they had not as yet been rewarded with a single bite. It wasexasperating. Dick knew that the larder at home was bare, and had sethis heart on carrying back two or three fish for supper and nextmorning'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 shoretowards a spot where the sea broke gently over a yard or two ofhalf-submerged rocks. The air was very still; there was no sound savethe light rustle of the waves washing the foot of the cliff. As the skydarkened and the last faint radiance vanished from the west, the starsappeared and the shade beneath the cliff became deeper. Sam rowed upand down for some minutes, Dick hauling in his line once or twice to seethat the hook was not fouled with sea-weed; but still there was no signof fish.
All at once, when he was on the point of giving up, he felt a slight tugat the line, which began immediately to slip through his fingers.
"At last!" he whispered, jumping to his feet so hastily as to set theboat rocking.
He held the line loosely until a dozen yards had run out, then tightenedhis grasp with a jerk. Meanwhile Sam had thrown the anchor overboard.
"He's a whopper," said Dick, letting his line run again. "See; there hegoes!"
He pointed to a slight phosphorescent glow on the water about twentyyards away. The line was running out fast. It was only a hundred yardslong, and he must check the rush of the fish, or he would lose line andall. Grasping the twine with both hands, he exerted a steady strain, atone moment being almost jerked out of the boat by the violent strugglesof 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 bidequiet!"
Dick wound up his line rapidly, feeling no resistance until he hadrecovered about thirty yards of it. Then once more it began to slipaway.
"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 theline without resistance; then there was a jerk; it
swerved to right, toleft; and he could merely hold his own in the desperate struggle. Butgradually, fight as the fish might, it was drawn nearer and nearer tothe boat. At the broken water it spent its last energies; phosphorescentflashes showed where it was dashing to and fro in the vain effort toregain its liberty. Then, its strength exhausted, it suffered itself tobe dragged slowly towards the boat.
Sam was eagerly on the watch, bending over the gunwale to seize the fishas soon as it came alongside. Suddenly he flung out his hands, only todraw them back with a cry. He had pricked them against the fish's sharpdorsal 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 intothe 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 willhave given me up, so we'll go now. He's big enough to give us two mealsat least."
They bent down to disengage the hook and wind up the line. So intenthad they been on the capture of the bass that neither had noticed, untilthat moment, a smack about three-quarters of a mile out at sea, sailingrapidly across the bay towards St. Cuby's Cove. The moon was rising,faintly illuminating the vessel, but casting a deep shadow on the waterimmediately beneath the cliff, so that the boys were invisible from thesmack. Familiar as they were with all the small craft belonging toPolkerran, 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 istoo steep, and Joe Penwarden's cottage too near. I think she's astranger that doesn't know the coast."
They watched the smack until she rounded the headland between them andthe Cove, and then began to row in the opposite direction. They hadjust reached the end of the promontory bounding Trevanion Bay on thenorth, and had swung round landward, when, their faces now being towardthe open sea, they saw something that caused them to pause inmid-stroke. Perhaps a mile in the offing like a phantom barque in thequivering radiance of the moonlight, lay a large three-masted vesselwith sails aback. Through the still air came the sound of creakingtackle, and the boys, resting on their oars, saw a boat lowered, andthen another, which pulled off in the same direction as the smack.
"This be some jiggery, Maister Dick," said Sam. "Do 'ee think, now, itbe Boney come spying for a place to land?"
Those were the days when the imminence of a French invasion kept thepeople of the southern counties in a constant state of alarm.
"Boney wouldn't come to this coast," replied Dick. "He wouldn't riskhis flat boats round the Lizard. No; he'll make some lonely quiet spoton 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 hadscarcely gone a third of a mile across the bay when a shrill whistlecleft 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 often or fifteen minutes disappeared into the darkness.
"There be queer things a-doing, I b'lieve," said Sam, while the vesselwas still in sight.
"Maybe," rejoined Dick, "but we don't know. Don't speak a word of ittill 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 Iwe'd best go home-along."
He dipped the oars, and pulled, not towards the Beal, beyond which laythe village, but towards the head of Trevanion Bay. It was nowhigh-water. Below the cliff only a narrow stretch of white sand wasvisible. Within ten yards of this beach Sam shipped oars, and the boatwas carried along until its nose stuck in the sand. Both the boys thensprang out, and dragged their craft up to the base of the cliff beyondhigh-water mark.
"'Tis lucky tide be high," said Sam, wiping his brow with the back ofhis 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 postdriven 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 ReubenPollex, the signs of whose rough and ready handiwork were easilydiscoverable.
Carrying his tackle, Dick ordered Sam to bring the bass, and led the wayalong a steep path that zigzagged up the face of the cliff, being soonhidden from the sea by knobs and corners of rock. It was a toilsomeclimb; the cliff was two hundred feet high, but the windings made thepath three times as long. When they reached the top, Sam found itnecessary once more to wipe his brow; then followed his young masteracross a stretch of coarse bent towards a large building, mistily lit bythe moonbeams, about a hundred yards distant.
The Towers, at one time a manor house of no little importance, was nowin the stage of decrepitude. It had been for centuries in the possessionof the Trevanions, who, in the time of King Charles I., had been afamily of great wealth and influence, owning estates, it was said, inthree counties. But the squire of that time had sold part of hisproperty to provide money for the King, whose cause he espoused withunselfish loyalty, and from that time the family fortunes had graduallydeclined, partly through the recklessness of certain of the owners,partly through sheer ill-luck. For many years wealth had been drawnfrom tin and copper mines beneath the surface, parts of whose apparatus,in the shape of ruined sheds, scaffoldings, pipes, conduits, brokenchains, strewed the ground in desolate abandonment. In the earlymanhood of the present squire, Dick's father, the lodes had shown signsof exhaustion, and Mr. Trevanion, wishing to keep the mines going asmuch for the sake of the miners as for his own interest, had spent largesums on opening up new workings, which proved unprofitable. He hadmortgaged acre after acre in this fierce struggle with misfortune,having more than his share of the doggedness of his race; but all hisefforts were fruitless; the mines were closed and the men dismissed; andthe Squire himself at last had no property unencumbered except the landon which the Towers stood, and the barren cliff between the house andthe end of the promontory, almost worthless save for the little grazingit afforded.
To this he had clung with grim tenacity. He was often hard put to it topay the interest on his mortgages as it became due; his littlehousehold, consisting now only of himself, his wife and son, and the twoPollexes, often had barely enough to eat; many a time he was tempted toraise 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 notadmit the fact, even to himself, superstition had a good deal to do withhis determination. He scoffed at the country folks' belief in omens andwitches, and professed to think nothing of an old motto which hadattached to his family for near a hundred and fifty years. In the reignof Charles II., when the Trevanions owned estates not only in Cornwall,but the adjoining counties, the spendthrift whose extravagance had beena 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:
Trevanion, whate'er thy fortune be, Hold fast the rock by the western sea.
Like his forefathers, Roger Trevanion derided the witch's counsel, but,like them, too, he had "held fast" until, a year before the opening ofour story, he had been forced to relax his grip. Now every rood of theland, to the uttermost extremity of the Beal, was in the hands ofmortgagees, and the dread of foreclosure weighed on the Squire like anightmare.
The Towers had been allowed to fall into decay. Only one wing was nowinhabited; the remainder was ruinous, and for t
he most part roofless.In the south wing lived the Squire, now past fifty years of age, hiswife, a few years younger, and Dick, their only son. Their soleattendants were Reuben Pollex, a widower, who had grown up from boyhoodwith the Squire, and steadily refused to leave him, and his boy Sam.These two did all the household work, grew vegetables, bred poultry andpigs, the sale of which, together with the small sums obtained byletting to neighbouring farmers the grazing rights of the cliff, was allthat kept the family from abject poverty. Dick himself was, to a largeextent, the family provider. With Sam's help he snared rabbits, shotwild fowl, and fished along the coast. His bronzed skin and hard fleshbespoke an active life in the open air, and as he went about in hisjersey, rough breeches, and long boots, he would scarcely have beendistinguishable from the fisher lads of the village but for a certainspringiness of gait and a look of refinement and thoughtfulness.
Dick and his companion hastened towards the south wing, where anunusually bright light in one of the lower rooms proclaimed that theSquire had company. While Sam took the fish, which turned out to be afine fourteen-pounder, into the kitchen, Dick changed his boots, washedhis hands, and entered the living-room. His father sat at the head ofthe table, his mother at the foot; between them was a man of about theSquire'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 butmuch-darned cloth; the only viands were a loaf of bread and half acheese. A large brown jug contained ale brewed in the family brew-houseby old Pollex.
"Why, Dick, how late you are!" said his mother. "We are just going tobegin supper."
"Better put it off for a few minutes, Mother. I've brought home a finebass. 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 thepostponement of the meal was welcome to her. He was an old friend ofthe Squire's--a messmate indeed, for Mr. Trevanion had served for a fewyears in the Navy; and his acquaintance with the penury of the householdhad neither diminished his friendship nor damped the cordiality of theSquire'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 ofentertainment. Such as might have looked merely for the satisfaction ofthe inner man had long since ceased to call. Mr. Mildmay could havesupped contentedly on bread and cheese. The meagreness of the farewould have troubled Mrs. Trevanion the most, and the look upon her facetold Dick how welcome was his addition to it.
Dick went into the kitchen to see how Sam was getting on, and soonreturned 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 wellcooked, upon my word."
"I am glad you like it," said Mrs. Trevanion, giving Dick privately anapproving smile.
"You'll soon be hard at work, I suppose, sir," said Dick to thelieutenant.
"Yes, no doubt I shall have a merry winter. But I wish the Commissionerswould make better arrangements on land. What can I do, with miles ofcoast to keep an eye on? One riding-officer and a few old excisemenhere 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 therecruiters. 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 ourproper concerns. As it is, with this eternal war going on, thefree-traders play ducks and drakes with law and ordinances."
The Squire said nothing. His attitude to smuggling was one ofneutrality. His training in the Navy made him in general adverse to thecontraband trade; but there was a time, not very long since, when theowners of the Towers were actively engaged in it, or at least accessoryto 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 ReubenPollex, who loved his "dish of tay," would certainly not have been ableto enjoy it in that time of high prices unless he had known a littleback 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. Mildmaywent on. "With the land force so weak, what's the result? If I'mcalled to a spot, ten to one by a trick, I must leave the rest of thecoast unguarded. As you know, the only man permanently in thisneighbourhood is old Penwarden, who is zealous enough, but not so activeas a younger man would be."
"No, poor man," said Mrs. Trevanion. "He has often said to me that hefears the Government will replace him. He will cling to his duty aslong as he can for the sake of his old sister. You know he supportsher, in Truro, Mr. Mildmay."
"I know it, and I'm not the man to put him out of a job, though one ofthese days a Commissioner of Customs will make his appearance, and thenI'll get a wigging."
All this while Dick had been considering whether he ought to tell thelieutenant about the strange vessels he had seen. He knew thatsmuggling was the only matter on which there was a certain constraintbetween his father and Mr. Mildmay. It was tacitly understood betweenthem that the Squire would not round on the smugglers. On the otherhand, the revenue officer knew that anything he told the Squire would beperfectly safe with him. He therefore discussed the subject quiteopenly with his old messmate, though, like a wise general, he neverspoke about any plans that he had in view.
Dick made up his mind to say nothing. The lieutenant's cutter was lyingin the little harbour, and if he mentioned what he had seen, Mr. Mildmaywould certainly hurry away and sail in chase of the stranger. What theSquire would not do, his son could not. But he had scarcely come tothis decision when matters took an unexpected turn.
"By the way, Squire," said the lieutenant, "I've just heard fromPlymouth that the _Aimable Vertu_--precious fine name for a rascallyprivateer--is showing herself very active in the Channel. She made twocaptures last week, and was sighted two days ago off Falmouth, where abarque only just managed to escape her. She's said to be a vessel ofextraordinary speed. The Government would give a good deal to catch herand hang her captain, that daredevil Frenchman, Delarousse; but it'swith 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 homewaters must be left to the enemy."
This led to an exchange of reminiscences of privateer-hunting during theAmerican war, when both were young in the service. Meanwhile Dick feltuncomfortable. What if the larger vessel he had lately seen was thisvery privateer, the _Aimable Vertu_? In that case it was no question ofsmuggling, but of piracy. He felt that he ought at least to mention thematter, yet hesitated to speak without consulting his father. By-and-bythere came an opportunity of speaking to him privately. While Mr.Mildmay was conversing with Mrs. Trevanion, Dick slipped to the Squire'sside and told him in a sentence or two what he had seen.
"Mildmay," cried the Squire, "hark to this. Dick tells me that an houror more ago he saw a strange three-master in the bay. She lowered acouple of boats, but recalled 'em, and sailed away westward. D'ye thinkshe's the privateer?"
"Dash my bones, Dick," cried the lieutenant, starting up, "why on earthdidn't you speak before? Oh! I see--I see; I won't reproach you; butI'll be as mad as a hatter if 'tis the rascal and she gets away. Goodnight to you all; you'll excuse me, Mrs. Trevanion. Oh, you young dog!"
He shook his fist at Dick, and hurried from the room.
The Adventures of Dick Trevanion: A Story of Eighteen Hundred and Four Page 1