“Monsieur!” I said, near sobbing because he was so near gone. “Monsieur!”
There was a minute of silence between us, and I heard the uproar ease outside the main cabin; but the door was thick and heavy for a ship’s door, and deadened the sounds maybe more than I knew.
Abruptly, there came almost a stillness out in the big cabin; and then, sudden, a great blow struck upon the door, that set all the bulkheads jarring and the telescopes in the beckets leaping.
But I had them upon the hip, for I shouted out in my lad’s voice, very hoarse and desperate:
“If ye break the door, I’ll blow the ship to hell. Aa’ve geet the powder-trap oppen, an’ Aa’ve me pistols. Sitha! If ye break in the door, Aa’ll loose off me pistol into the powder!”
Just that I sung out to them; and never another blow was struck upon the door, for the powder was stored under the deck of Captain Drool’s cabin, as all the ship knew, and I better than any, being the lad that had cleaned his cabin many a score of times. And this is the reason that I chose to retreat there from the men.
“Boy,” I heard monsieur saying from the floor, “is the hatch open!”
“No, monsieur,” I said, grinning a little at the easy way I had driven the men off.
“Open it, boy,” he said gravely. “Nor tell ever a lie with a light tongue. And when you have to deal a man the bitterness of death, be not over eager to consign him to hell, but rather to God, Who understandeth all and forgiveth all.”
“Yes, sir,” I said; and opened the powder-hatch, with a great fear at my heart that I was truly come to the end of life.
“Am I to shoot into the powder, sir?” I asked him, all strung-up and ready to shut my eyes and fire at his bidding.
But he waved his fingers a little for me to come to him; and when I was come to him, he lay a moment and looked up at me, seeming to smile a little in spite of his pain.
“You are a strange boy,” he said at last in a weak voice. “Fetch me a sheet of paper from the captain’s desk—nay, fetch me the log-book and a quill and the ink.”
When I had fetched these, he bid me put them upon the deck, to the left of him, and to open the log-book at the last entry, also to wet the quill ready.
“Now, boy,” he whispered, “make good haste and gentle, and help me over a little upon my left side. Quick now, before I am gone, or it will be too late to do God’s own justice.”
His voice was very weak, and whistled thin and strange as he spoke; and when I had helped him with all my power of gentleness on to his side, I saw how he had been lying there in his blood.
“Steady me so, boy,” he whispered; and I steadied him while he wrote.
And as he wrote, labouring to hold in his groans and to contain all his senses to his purpose, I could see the handles of the knives in his breast. And so he writ, and made no ado of the agony it cost him; but truly a greater victory over mortal pain I could think a man never won.
“Now, this is the letter, which I have by me to this day, though I was too ignorant at that time to know what it was that he wrote:
“To Master Alfred Sylles,
“The Corner House,
“Portsmouth Town.
“Dear Master Sylles,—I write this near death, and with no power to write much. See that justice be done me in this fashion, to wit, that the boy who bears this, John Merlyn, shall be mine heir. See that he go to a good school, well equipt. I will tell him the names of my dead lady, so that you shall know that he is indeed the youth of this my will and last testament, though none here can witness, for I am alone save for this boy, who hath fought by and for me as I could have wished mine own son to fight.
“From him will you have all the story.
“Farewell, dear Master Sylles.
“ARTOIS JEYNOIS.”
When this was writ, he laid the quill down between the pages, so that the rolling of the ship should not squander it. But when I would have helped steady him again on to his back, he bid me wait and listen, for that he would certainly die with his words unsaid when he moved to lie down again.
“Remember these three names, my boy,” he said; “nor tell them to any on earth save Master Sylles of the Corner House of Portsmouth Town, whom you know by repute, and to whom I have writ this letter. The names are Mercelle Avonynne Elaise. Now repeat them till you can never let them slip.”
He waited while I said them over a dozen times, maybe, then he caught his breath a little, and seemed as if he were gone; but presently he breathed again, but with a louder noise and bleeding very sadly.
“To Master Sylles tell all that you know,” he said; “and because you have been a brave and a faithful lad, I bequeath to you my sword, to use only with honour.”
He caught his breath again, and I trembled with a strange lad’s ague of pity to know how to ease him; but after a little while he began again, but whispering:
“How you shall escape, lad, I know not; but hold this cabin, for here they are in fear of you, because of the powder. Presently, when the ship is into the Channel, you may have chance to swim ashore. But wrap the letter up safe first in an oilskin. Tell Master Sylles all. Now, may God be with you, boy. Lay me down.”
He sank his great shoulder against me as he spoke, and slid round on to his back with a strange, deep groan, and in that moment the light went clean out of his eyes, and I saw that he was truly dead.
And I knelt there beside him, and cried as only a lad can cry over his dead hero.
***
Of the manner of my escape, I need to tell but little here, for that night the men, being in fear of the law, ran the brig ashore below the Lizards, thinking to drown the ship and me, and so hide their foul work upon the stark rocks.
But they made a bad business of their landing, and many were drowned because of the heavy seas; but I, who stayed in the ship, was safe, for she held together until the morning, when the weather was grown fine; and I swam ashore, with monsieur’s sword made fast to my back.
Yet it was a matter of twelve weary days after this before I came safe into Portsmouth Town, where I learnt from good Master Sylles that I was the heir of monsieur. And how good Master Sylles did weep—for he had loved him—when I told him all concerning the vile murdering of monsieur.
But he stayed not at weeping, being a practical man as well as a warm friend, for when the bo’sun returned to Portsmouth Town a while after, supposing me to be drowned in the brig, Master Sylles had the watch upon him within the hour, and hailed him to high justice, so that a week later the bo’sun was hanged in chains at the corner of the four roads outside Portsmouth Town, to be for a warning to shipmen and landsmen that the trade of murder shall bring eternal sorrow.
And at last I am come to an end of my telling of that dear friend of my youth, who is with me in my memory all the long years of my life. And even in that early day did his goodness and charity affect me; so that, as well I do mind me, once when I passed the dried body of the bo’sun, I must stop and loose off my cap, and set up a prayer to God for him, for I knew that Monsieur Jeynois would so have wished it.
The Inn of the Black Crow
An Extract from the Travelling Notebook
of John Dory, Secret Exciseman.
June 27th.—I cannot say that I care for the look of mine host. If he tippled more and talked more I should like him better; but he drinks not, neither does he speak sufficiently for ordinary civility.
I could think that he has no wish for my custom. Yet, if so, how does he expect to make a living, for I am paying two honest guineas a week for board and bed no better than the Yellow Swan at Dunnage does me for a guinea and a half. Yet that he knows me or suspects me of being more than I appear I cannot think, seeing that I have never been within a hundred miles of this desolated village of Erskine, where there is not even the sweet breath of the sea to blow the silence away, but everywhere the grey moors, slit by the lonesome mud-beset creeks, that I have few doubts see some strange doings at nights, and could, maybe, e
xplain the strange crushed body of poor James Naynes, the exciseman, who had been found dead upon the moors six weeks gone; and concerning which I am here to discover secretly whether it was foul murder or not.
June 30th.—That I was right in my belief that Jalbrok, the landlord, is a rascal, I have now very good proof, and would shift my quarters, were it not that there is no other hostel this side of Bethansop, and that is fifteen weary miles by the road.
I cannot take a room in any of the hovels round here; for there could be no privacy for me, and I should not have the freedom of unquestioned movement that one pays for at all inns, along with one’s bed and board. And here, having given out on arriving that I am from London town for my health, having a shortness of breath, and that I fish with a rod, like my old friend Walton—of whom no man hereabouts has ever heard—I have been let go my way as I pleased, with never a one of these grim Cornishman to give me so much as a passing nod of the head; for to them I am a “foreigner,” deserving, because of this stigma, a rock on my head, rather than a friendly word on my heart. However, in the little Dowe-Fleet river there are trout to make a man forget lonesomeness.
But though I am forced to stay here in the inn until my work is done, and my report prepared for the authorities, yet I am taking such care as I can in this way and that, and never do I venture a yard outside the inn without a brace of great flintlocks hidden under my coat.
Now, I have said I proved Jalbrok, the landlord of this inn of the Black Crow, a rascal. And so have I in two things; for this morning I caught him and his tapman netting the little Dowe-Fleet, and a great haul he had of fish, some that were three pounds weight and a hundred that were not more than fingerlings, and should never have left water.
I was so angry to see this spoiling of good, honest sport that I loosed out at Jalbrok with my tongue, as any fisherman might; but he told me to shut my mouth, and this I had to do, though with difficulty, and only by remembering that a man that suffers from a shortness of wind has no excuse to fight. So I made a virtue of the matter, and sat down suddenly on the bank, and panted pretty hard and spit a bit, and then lay on my side, as if I had a seizure. And a very good acting I made of it, I flattered myself, and glad that I had held my temper in, and so made them all see that I was a truly sick man.
Now, there the landlord left me, lying on my side, when he went away with all that great haul of good trout. And this was the second thing to prove the man a rascal, and liefer to be rid of me than to keep me, else he had not left me there, a sick man as he supposed. And I say and maintain that any man that will net a stream that may be fished with a feathered hook, and will also leave a sick man to recover or to die alone, all as may be, is a true rascal—and so I shall prove him yet.
July 2nd (Night).—I have thought that the landlord has something new on his mind lately, and the thing concerns me; for twice and again yesterday evening I caught him staring at me in a very queer fashion, so that I have taken more care than ever to be sure that no one can come at me during the night.
After dinner this evening I went down and sat a bit in the empty taproom, where I smoked my pipe and warmed my feet at the big log fire. The night had been coldish, in spite of the time of the year, for there is a desolate wind blowing over the great moorlands, and I could hear the big Erskine creek lapping on the taproom side of the house, for the inn is built quite near to the creek.
While I was smoking and staring into the fire, a big creekman came into the taproom and shouted for Jalbrok, the landlord, who came out of the back room in his slow, surly way.
“I’m clean out o’ guzzle,” the creekman said, in a dialect that was no more Cornish than mine. “I’ll swop a good yaller angel for some o’ that yaller sperrit o’ yourn, Jal. An’ that are a bad exchange wi’out robb’ry. He, he! Us that likes good likker likes it fresh from the sea, like a young cod. He, he!”
There is one of those farm-kitchen wind-screens, with a settle along it, that comes on one side the fireplace in the taproom, and neither Jalbrok nor the big creekman could see me where I sat, because the oak-screen hid me, though I could look round it with the trouble of bending my neck,
Their talk interested me greatly, as may be thought, for it was plain that the man, whoever he might be, had punned on the gold angel, which is worth near half a guinea of honest English money; and what should a creekman be doing with such a coin, or to treat it so lightly, as if it were no more than a common groat? And afterwards to speak of liking the good liquor that comes fresh from the sea! It was plain enough what he meant.
I heard Jalbrok, the landlord, ringing the coin on the counter. And then I heard him saving it was thin gold; and that set the creekman angry.
“Gglag you for a scrape-bone!” he roared out, using a strange expression that was new to me. “Gglag you! You would sweat the oil off a topmast, you would! If you ain’t easy, there’s more nor one as ha’ a knife into you ower your scrape-bone ways; and, maybe, us shall make you pay a good tune for French brandy one o’ these days, gglag you!”
“Stow that!” said the landlord’s voice. “That’s no talk for this place wi’ strangers round. I—”
He stopped, and there followed, maybe, thirty seconds of absolute silence. Then I heard someone tiptoeing a few steps over the floor, and I closed my eyes and let my pipe droop in my mouth, as if I were dosing. I heard the steps cease, and there was a sudden little letting out of a man’s breath, and I knew that the landlord had found I was in the taproom with them.
The next thing I knew he had me by the shoulder, and shook me, so that my pipe, dropped out of my mouth on to the stone floor.
“Here!” he roared out. “Wot you doin’ in here!”
“Let go of my shoulder, confound your insolence,” I said; and ripped my shoulder free from his fist with perhaps a little more strength than I should have shown him, seeing that I am a sick man to all in this part.
“Confound you!” I said again, for I was angry; but now I had my wits more about me. “Confound your putting your dirty hands on me. First you net the river and spoil my trout fishing, and now you must spoil the best nap I have had for three months.”
As I made an end of this, I was aware that the big creekman was also staring round the oak wind-screen at me. And therewith it seemed a good thing to me to fall a-coughing and “howking,” as we say in the North; and a better country I never want!
“Let un be, Jal. Let un be!” I heard the big creekman saying. “He ain’t but a broken-winded man. There’s none that need ha’ fear o’ that sort. He’ll be growin’ good grass before the winter. Come you, gglag you, an’ gi’e me some guzzle, an’ let me be goin’.”
The landlord looked at me for nearly a minute without a word; then he turned and followed the creekman to the drinking counter. I heard a little further grumbled talk and argument about the angel being thin gold, but evidently they arranged it between them, for Jalbrok measured out some liquor, that was good French brandy by the smell of it, if ever I’ve smelt French brandy, and a little later the creekman left.
July 5th.—Maybe I have kissed the inn wench a little heartily on occasions, but she made no sound objections, and it pleased me, I fear, a little to hear Llan, the lanky, knock-kneed tapman and general help, rousting at the wench for allowing it. The lout has opinions of himself, I do venture to swear; for a more ungainly, water-eyed, shambling rascal never helped his master net a good trout stream before or since. And as on that occasion he showed a great pleasure, and roared in his high pitched crow at the way I lay on the bank and groaned and coughed, I take an equal great pleasure to kiss the maid, which I could think she is, whenever I chance to see him near.
And to see the oaf glare at me, and yet fear to attack even a sick man, makes me laugh to burst my buttons; but I make no error, for it is that kind of a bloodless animal that will put a knife between a man’s shoulders when the chance offers.
July 7th.—Now a good kiss, once in a way, may be a good thing all round, and this I discovered
it to be, for the wench has taken a fancy to better my food, for which I am thankful; also, last night, she went further, for she whispered in my ear, as she served me my dinner, to keep my bedroom door barred o’ nights; but when I would know why, she smiled, putting her finger to her lip, and gave me an old countryside proverb to the effect that a barred door let no corn out and no rats in. Which was a good enough hint for any man, and I repaid the wench in a way that seemed to please her well, nor did she say no to a half-guinea piece which I slipped into her broad fist.
Now, the room I sleep in is large, being about thirty feet long and, maybe, twenty wide, and has a good deal of old and bulky furniture in it, that makes it over-full of shadows at night for my liking.
The door of my room is of oak, very heavy and substantial, and without panels. There is a wooden snick-latch on it to enter by, and the door is made fast with a wooden bolt set in oak sockets, and pretty strong. There are two windows to the room, but these are barred, for which I have been glad many a time.
There are in the bedroom two great, heavy, oaken clothes-cupboards, two settees, a big table, two great wood beds, three lumbersome old chairs, and three linen-presses of ancient and blackened oak, in which the wench keeps not linen, but such various oddments as the autumn pickings of good hazel nuts, charcoal for the upstairs brazier, and in the third an oddment of spare feather pillows and some good down in a sack; and besides these, two gallon puggs—as they name the small kegs here—of French brandy, which I doubt not she has “nigged” from the cellars of mine host, and intends for a very welcome gift to some favoured swain, or, indeed, for all I know, to her own father, if she have one. And simple she must be some ways, for she has never bothered to lock the press.
Well do I know all these matters by now, for I have a bothersome pilgrimage each night, first to open the great cupboards and look in, and then to shut and snick the big brass locks. And after that I look in the linen-chests, and smile at the two puggs of brandy, for the wench has found something of a warm place in my heart because of her honest friendliness to me. Then I peer under the two settees and the two beds; and so I am sure at last that the room holds nothing that might trouble me in my sleep.
The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions Page 19