Where Gold Lies

by Jacqueline George

  “Find ‘em,” Pew raged. “They’re hiding. Look out round the back. Or the beach. Look on the beach.” Israel and Black Dog, calmer than the rest of us, started to go through the other rooms. I rushed out to the back of the house with the others. The mist had lifted a little and I could clearly see Pew cursing and shouting in the middle of the road.

  “Round the back, you swabs. George, get down to the strand. Find those thieving weevils and slit ‘em. What’ve you got?” Black Dog was coming out of the inn.

  “They’ve gone.” He spat to one side. “And now we’ll have the village down on us. D---- ‘em.” Pew would have none of his resignation. He still screamed at us and sent us here and there.

  “Cut and run, Pew,” Black Dog shouted at him, and stopped short as a piercing whistle came from the direction of the village. “That’s Caspar! I’m off,” and he started to run along the road towards the sea.

  Pew became so enraged he must have been on the verge of a seizure himself. Oaths and curses poured out of him. The rest of us hesitated then a second whistle from Caspar made up our minds and we fled. Much to our shame we left Blind Pew behind.

  As we ran up the hill after Black Dog, we could hear him calling for us. Then his shouts died in a thunder of hooves.

  Following the Chart

  We felt a chastened band when we tumbled aboard Long John’s lugger that night and set sail for Bristol. Look where all our effort and scheming of the past months had led us. The chart had gone, the county was raised against us and Pew had been taken or worse. Surely after no more than a few questions from the excise men, Pew would lead them to our door in Bristol. Our long journey from Savannah had come to naught, and our very lives lay in jeopardy.

  Long John was in the cabin with Israel Hands. He had poured defamations and curses over us when we arrived empty handed, but once the storm was over he had laughed and welcomed Caspar and me warmly. Then he had set the two of us on watch and Caspar had the tiller. The sea was grey and smooth. With a quavering breeze on our quarter we rolled gently as we crossed the swell. The heave of the deck and the flap and slap of the rigging all felt very fine after so long ashore. And the smell too, not just of the fresh sea but also the tar and fishy smells of the lugger itself.

  Israel came on deck. “Rouse ‘em up, Dick. We’re going ashore.” I went below to shake hammocks.

  Back on deck Long John the lead going and had taken the tiller himself. We stood into a rocky cove to drop anchor. The lugger towed her dory astern and it was a matter of moments to pull her up. Israel and I were rowed ashore and left on the ocean beach to stumble over ice-rimed boulders to firm ground. Behind us, the lugger was already laying a silver moon-lit wake across the sea as it sailed north for Bristol.

  Israel and I wrestled with the problem of finding a way up onto the cliffs. People in those parts do not live too close to the sea. The Atlantic weather is altogether too wild, and the beaches too rocky to use. When they come down to the sea to look for shellfish, or to launch a fishing boat, they use winding earth paths though the brambles and stunted thorn bushes. All fairly obvious by daylight but desperately difficult to find at night. Added to that, we must pass no houses. With the excise out and searching, we did not wish to be associated with the attack on the Admiral Benbow.

  Where we had landed I do not know. I expect we were somewhere in the region of Hartland. Anyway, by the time we reached the Bude road, muddy and scratched, a greyness had come into the eastern sky. We headed south, eager to return to our coppice at Welcombe Mouth. We were the first folk out and about on the road, and judging by the way the weather had started to come in off the sea, there would not be many people out that day.

  We reached our goal about the time our gypsy friends were preparing breakfast. The young girl Lizzie sat beneath our tarpaulin, nursing a baby brother. Her grandmother obviously suspected we were not going to return and had already made a claim of possession. But she was happy enough to see us and brought breakfast, bread and turnip soup with more than a hint of pheasant.

  So why did we go back? Well, look at your grandfather’s spirit. He knew we had lost the chart, probably with no chance of recovering it, but he was not going to give up any chance of reaching the treasure. He wanted to know who had the chart, and how he could at least get a look at it. To that end he had sent Israel, who was still unknown in the area, to make enquiries. I went as a guide.

  “I didn’t look to see you people again,” said the old lady, watching her granddaughter serve our portions. “I hear there was a right set-to in the village last night.” She looked hard at me and I am sure I wriggled under her sharp eye. Israel was a better horse trader.

  “Is that right?” he asked, sounding naturally innocent. “Did you hear what it was all about?”

  “No, I did not,” said out hostess tartly, “but I will shortly, when Lizzie goes down to get some eggs. I must have my eggs, and I’ll have some news along with them.” She started to sing to herself in a soft, wavering voice.

  “So little Lizzie is going down to the village,” Israel addressed my little friend. “Now if you was to come by any news, any interesting news, I believe I might come by a farthing for you.” The girl pouted at him and said nothing.

  “Get on with you.” Israel laughed at her. “A whole farthing and that’s not enough for you? Very well, a ha’penny and no more. But it will have to be interesting news for all that.”

  The girl ran off for a basket while her grandmother fussed about at the back of her tent. “Here you are, Lizzie,” we heard her saying. “Three coney skins and two dozen pegs.”

  “Oh, Gran,” Lizzie pleaded. “Nobody will take nothing here. Let me buy the eggs.”

  “You lazy jade, come here and get these. She thinks money grows in the fields like mushrooms,” she muttered half to herself and half to us. The girl resigned herself and put the skins and the pegs in her basket. The old lady shouted to her as she started down to the road below. “Mind you get at least four for each of them skins! I tanned them proper and they’re nice and soft.”

  The bad weather had reached us now, and we could hear the wind threshing the tree-tops. Where we had camped near the valley bottom, we felt little wind and we had only the inconvenience of the rain dripping from the trees. It was a day for sitting by the fire, keeping warm and telling stories.

  I sat by the door of Grandmother’s tent and watched for Lizzie. She came after a long wait, hurrying up the slippery path with her basket under her cape. She rushed inside and, leaving the sodden cape at the door, claimed a place close to the fire.

  “What did you bring, my girl?” asked Grandmother, rooting through the basket, “How many eggs is that? What! Just ten? You let my coney skins go for just ten eggs?”

  The girl was unconcerned and just giggled. “No, Gran. Only two of them. Two skins and two dozen pegs. I did well, didn’t I?”

  The old lady rooted again and retrieved the stray skin. “So you did, so you did. Now you may have some tea to warm you up.” Drawing a can up from somewhere behind her, she threw a handful of leaves into a small pot and put it on the fire. “Now then. What did you hear?”

  Seeing she had our full attention, Lizzie was not disposed to let her news go lightly. “I went to Mrs. Hancock.”

  “I know,” said Grandmother. “You went to see young William.”

  “No, I didn’t, Gran.” Lizzie blushed. “He wasn’t there anyway.”

  “So you were looking for him then?”

  “No, I wasn’t. I was looking for Mrs. Hancock for the eggs. And she wanted the coney skins. I made her take the pegs too.”

  “Hmm. I don’t care about the pegs. Your father made them. But I tanned them skins. What does she want with them?”

  “She’s going to make slippers for the new baby. He’s ever so nice, with blue eyes.”

  “Yes, yes. Don’t you get interested in babies yet, there’s plenty of time for that. Now, what did you hear?”

  “Mrs. Hancock said there were
highwaymen at the Admiral Benbow last night.”

  Grandmother looked sharply at us. “Highwaymen, eh? And what were they doing there?”

  “They robbed the inn. They took away all Mrs. Hawkins’s money and jewellery. And they broke the chairs and then they went off to Bude.”

  “What did they do to Mrs. Hawkins?”

  “She wasn’t there. She’d run away with Jim, and she was hiding in a ditch under the road. She says she could hear the highwaymen talking just two yards away, but they didn’t see her. She said they wanted to cut her throat.”

  Grandmother thought about the news. “Highwaymen, you say. Now the Admiral Benbow’s a fair way from any highway. And they’d be hungry men indeed if they had to rely on Madam Hawkins’s jewellery box for a living. What else did you hear?”

  Lizzie let go another bit of news. “The old captain’s dead. Mrs. Hawkins said he had another stroke yesterday, before the highwaymen came. She says it’s the best thing that came out of a black day.”

  “Highwaymen.” Grandmother was still gnawing at the idea, like a dog at a bone. “Now if you were to say they were sea-faring highwaymen, that might fit with the old captain, mightn’t it?” She looked at Israel but said nothing. “What else did you hear, girl?”

  “Jim Hawkins went with the Doctor to Mr. Trelawney’s house. Mrs. Hawkins said the old captain gave him a treasure map before he died, and the Squire wanted it. He went there with the excise men.”

  “The excise men as well? Now there’s a thing. You don’t get excise men without there being smugglers. And the Admiral Benbow might be a handy place for smugglers. Call your highwaymen smugglers and I’ll start to believe you. What else, girl? You’re hiding something.”

  “The blind man’s dead. The excise men ran him down outside the inn.”

  Lizzie seemed no more concerned about this piece of news than the rest of her story, for all that Pew had been living with us. I suppose he was not an easy man to love.

  “Pew’s dead?” Israel started out of his quietness. “Pew that was here along of Dick?”

  “He’s dead,” confirmed Lizzie, “And they’ll be burying him this afternoon.”

  “You stupid hussy!” scolded Grandmother. “Why didn’t you tell us straight out?” She turned to Israel. “Now, my boy, I don’t know what you were all about last night, nor why you came here. Let the King take care of his own duties, I say. But sure as eggs are eggs, we shall have a visit from the excise. Once they find out that Pew was staying here, they’ll be up here looking around.

  “You’d better be on your way now, no time to lose. Get back up the hill and go back to where you came from.”

  “But what about the chart?” I blundered in.

  “The chart?” Grandmother seized on my concern as quick as a terrier on a rat. “Oh-ho! So the Squire has your chart and you can’t do without it. Am I right? That’s why you came back. Israel Hands, getting the truth out of you is like getting blood out of an oak tree. And how can your friends help you if you don’t let on what you’re about?

  “Now let me think.” She closed her eyes and seemed to be chewing over ideas with her old gums. “I know. Get back up the hill where they won’t see you, and up to the Bude road. Go straight across from the Welcombe road and about a mile and a half in. You’ll come to another wood much like this one. It drops off on your left down into a valley. Down there at the bottom you’ll find my cousin Emmy.

  “She stays there more or less permanent. She’s stopped travelling now. You just tell her that Cousin Elspeth sent you, but don’t say no more. The village folk visit her, you see. She makes them up cures and such like, so there’s always folk coming round to sure a sick cow or a broken heart. If you talk too much, the whole countryside will hear of it within the day.”

  The old lady thought a little more. “I believe you’d better take your tarpaulin with you, but I shall think better of you if you leave it for me when you move on. I’ll send Lizzie after you with news, if there is any. She seems to have a yen for Dick here.”

  “Oh, Gran, don’t!” Lizzie was blushing. She looked to run out of the tent as we laughed at her, but the rain held her back.

  “Now, get on with you,” said the old lady abruptly. “They may come anytime.”

  Leaving Pew to be buried in a pauper’s grave by the Parish, we scrambled up through the wood taking turns with the sodden tarpaulin. It was not a long walk, but the wind blew cold and miserable. It drove blasts of rain across the fields and I blessed my good sea-faring oil-skins, a gift from the Providence (what a long time ago that seemed!)

  We found Cousin Emmy easily. The paths through the wood all converged towards the bottom of the hill. There, under the beech trees, stood a small hovel, just as the charcoal burners use, with a wisp of smoke trickling out of its disorderly black thatch. Also trickling out was the sound of a thin, cracked old voice singing, and singing in a strange language.

  “Ho there!” called Israel as we approached. “Is that Cousin Emmy there?”

  The singing stopped. “I believe it might be. But who would be wanting her?”

  “Cousin Elspeth sent us.”

  “Did she indeed? If she sent you here, she must be trying to physic you or hide you and you don’t sound like you need no physicking. Is that true, or isn’t it?” From the shadows of the hovel’s interior came a remarkable little woman. A little bent, and brown as a nut, she wore heavy green skirts and a thick black shawl wrapped tightly round her. No hat covered her straggly grey hair, and gold ear-rings peeped out from under it. I believe she would have looked everyone’s vision of a witch, but for her clear eye and the smile waiting to break over her creased face.

  “Oh, great big men!” she said with surprise. “And where am I meant to put you? And what will you eat? Acorns?”

  We felt abashed. “Er, we have a tarpaulin,” I mumbled.

  “So you have. So you have. And you may pitch it there.” She waved us to the next beech tree. “But do you have any pennies? Without pennies you’ll have a very light supper.” Israel hastily offered sixpence. “Oh, men of wealth and fashion. Well, we’ll dine well enough on that. And how long might you be staying?”

  There was something about Cousin Emmy that commanded a great deal of respect, and for once Israel had his wings clipped. “We’ll be here maybe a week, ma’am, if you please.”

  Cousin Emmy looked at us carefully. “Ma’am, eh? I believe I shall like you after all. But that’s enough of that. Call me Emmy, without the fancy handle, that’ll do. And don’t think you’ll be living like lords on sixpence a week, neither.”

  As Israel fumbled in his pocket for more money she stopped him. “No, no. Not now. I shall ask you when I need it. Now come along inside and warm up. You can look to your tarpaulin when the rain lets up. If it’s going to, before the day goes.”

  As we huddled around the small fire, she got on with making some pan-bread to feed us. We had obviously come to an inn of some distinction.

  The next few days we spent helping out with household work. We scoured the woods for dead branches (we were not allowed to touch any green timber.) The wood pile we made would certainly see Emmy through the rest of the winter. We dug a new privy and laid stepping stones across the muddy places in her paths. Stone steps down to the stream made fetching water a good deal easier for our hostess and kept us warm and busy during the building of them.

  Emmy brought us food from the village, mostly potatoes and turnips in truth, but January is a hungry time of year. It seemed the winter was thinking to leave, and warmer weather brought on the first of the primroses, so our little forest was not a bad place to be waiting in.

  Lizzie visited us on our second day with Emmy. She brought news that the very fields were buzzing with the story of Flint’s chart. It seemed the Squire, Mr. Trelawney, had seized upon it and had determined to use it himself and make his fortune. Next day I walked to Bideford to send to Long John the information we had gathered so far.

  Several days
later Elspeth came herself with little Lizzie for a visit. The spring sun dappled through the bare branches around us as we sat at a small fire, and talked of this and that. Elspeth circled round and round the subject of Flint’s chart. She was trying to get us to talk of the treasure and how we came by knowledge of it. I kept my mouth shut and Israel fended her off, continually trying to change the subject of our talk. In the end curiosity got the better of subtlety and she attacked us head-on.

  “Israel Hands, I know you for the most cross-grained, ungrateful son of a pig-gelder with more than one foot on dry land! Here am I doing my best to help you along, and you’ll not give the smallest taste of what you’re after. Well, if that’s your fancy, you can ask elsewhere for the latest news!” Leaving this tantalising hint hanging in the air, she started to fumble in her pocket and came out with the blackened stump of a pipe. After some more fumbling, she made a show of filling it and reached for a spill from the fire to light it.

  “Elspeth, my dear,” said Israel, “Don’t take on so. You told us yourself to keep mum. We don’t want half the kingdom following us around.”

  Elspeth said nothing but drew deeply on her pipe to get it well alight. She might not have heard. Emmy watched them both with amusement, sure of the outcome.

  “Come on, Elspeth,” cajoled Israel. “Don’t make us wait for the news.”

  Elspeth took the pipe from her mouth and blew a long stream of blue smoke in the direction of the fire. She looked Israel straight in the eye, opened her mouth a crack, and put the pipe back in it.

  Emmy was chuckling out loud by now and it was borne in on Israel that he had not a card in his hand. “Oh, Elspeth, don’t you be so hard. Tell us what you’ve heard.”

  “You first, Israel Hands, and then we’ll see.”

  “Alright, alright,” he yielded. “What do you want to know?”

  “You can start by telling me about this treasure the Squire’s chasing. How much is it?”

  “Why, as to that... I’d guess about a hundredweight of silver bits and pieces.”