CHAPTER III

Life did not seem to be strenuous in the valley of the Lana, seven miles from the fishing village of Porthawn, and thirty from Falmouth, when the eighteenth century still wanted more than ten years of completing its first half. To be sure, the high road to Plymouth was not so very far away, and coaches with passengers and luggage flew daily across the little bridge of the Lana at the rate sometimes of as much as nine miles an hour; and the consciousness of this made the people of the village of Ruthallion think rather well of themselves—so at least the dwellers in the more remote parts of the region were accustomed to affirm. The generous were ready to allow that the most humble-minded of people would think well of themselves if they were so favourably situated in regard to the great world as to be able to get news from London only a few days old, simply by waiting at the turn of the Plymouth road until a coach came up.

But of this privilege the people of that most scattered of all Cornish villages, Ruthallion, did not avail themselves to any marked extent, except upon occasions of great national importance; such as the achievement of a victory by King George's army in the Low Countries, or by the King's ships in the West Indies. In the latter case the news usually came from the Plymouth side of the high road. For the sober discussion of such news in all its bearings, it was understood that the Lana Mill, situated as it was in the valley within a few hundred yards of the village, and having a little causeway off the Porthawn road all to itself, occupied a most favourable position. There was no inn with a well-lighted bar-parlour within four miles of the place, and the miller was hospitable. He was said to be the inheritor of an important secret in regard to the making of cider, and it was no secret that his autumnal brew had a flavour that was unsurpassed by any cider produced in Cornwall, or (as some people said) in the very apple-core of Devonshire itself.

Miller Pendelly was known to be a warm man in more senses than one. He had not only a considerable amount of property apart from the mill, which the unfailing waters of the Lana fed; he was a warm-hearted man, though one of the most discreet that could be imagined. When it was a charity to give, he gave freely, but he showed himself to be well aware of the fact that sometimes charity consists in withholding one's hand. He was not a man that could be easily imposed upon; though, like all shrewd people, he allowed three or four ne'er-do-wells to borrow from him—once. He talked of every such case with great bitterness on his tongue, but with a twinkle in his eye that assured his confidants that he knew what he was about. To rid the neighbourhood of an idle youth who was robbing an easy-going father, was surely worth the disbursement of five guineas; and the expatriation of a hard-drinking husband was not dear at six.

He, himself, was a good husband to a good wife, and the father of a girl, who, though well favoured, was discreet—a girl who loved her home and all it contained better than she did any possible lover.

The miller's friends were just equal in number to the inhabitants of the valley and of the villages of Porthawn and Ruthallion. Even the mother of the worthless youth who had disappeared with the five guineas, and the wife of the bibulous husband who had not returned after contracting his loan of six, became, in the course of time, his friends, and almost forgave him for his exercise of generosity. But among his neighbours there were none whom he met on such friendly terms as those to whom he turned with a side-nod of his head when the girls had gone.

“They may spare their breath who would tell me that the ill-favoured ones are the best daughters,” said he.

“I'll not be the first to advance that doctrine to the father of Susan Pendelly,” said the blacksmith.

The miller laughed.

“Sue was not in my thought,” he cried—“at least not when I spoke, though thinking of her now only makes me stronger in my opinion.'Twas the sight of t'other lass. Merry she be and with a sharp enough tongue, but was there ever a better daughter than Nelly Polwhele, tell me that, Hal?”

“A fine salmon fish it be surely,” said the blacksmith. “Seven pounds, I'll wager, if 'tis an ounce.”

“Out upon thee for a curmudgeon,” shouted the miller, giving the blacksmith a push of a vehemence so friendly that he with difficulty retained his place on the settee.

“'Tis a mortal pity that so spirited a mare foal will be tamed sooner or later—that's the way with all female flesh whether well-favoured or black-a-vised,” remarked the farmer..

Richard Pritchard, who was the only single man present, shook his head with as great a show of gravity as if he had spent his life taming spirited things.

His arrogance aroused his host.

“And what are you that gives yourself airs, my man?” he cried. “What call has a worm of a bachelor to let his tongue wag on a matter that might well make owdacious fathers o' families keep dead silence? Richard Pritchard, my good man, this talk is not for such as thee. Thou beest a middling silent man by nature, Dick, and for that thou shouldst be thankful when wild words be flying abroad on household matters.”

“I allow that I went too far, neighbour, though I call all to witness that I did not open my mouth to speak,” said the water-finder, with great humility.

“You are aye over daring, though never all through immoral, Dick,” said the blacksmith gravely.

“I allow that I earned reproof, friend,” said Richard.' “We all be human, and many have frail thought of high language, and a proud heart at the hope of wisdom and ancient learning. But I take reproof with no ill-feeling.”

The miller roared at the success of his jest.

“Richard Pritchard, if I didn't know you for a brave Welshman, I would take you for a Dorset dairyman that's so used to the touch o' butter they say it wouldn't melt in their mouths,” he cried when he found breath.

At this point Mistress Pendelly bustled into the room, which was not the kitchen, but only a sort of business-room of the mill, with the message that supper would not be ready so soon as she could wish; the salmon steaks took their own time to cook, she affirmed, and expressed the hope that her friends would be able to hold out for another half hour.

“Make no excuses, mother,” said her husband. “Why, good wife, the very sound of the frizzling will keep us alive in hope, and the smell that creeps through the crevices of the kitchen door is nigh as satisfying as a full meal in itself.”

“Speak for yourself if you are so minded, miller,” cried Hal Holmes. “Sup off the sound of a frizzle mixed with the sniff of a well-greased pan, if you so please, but give me a flake or two o' salmon flesh, good mother, the pink o' the body just showing through the silver o' the scales. Oh, a lady born is your sea salmon with her pink complexion shining among the folds o' her silver lace!”

“Ay, sir, better than that your praise should be, for the fish's beauty is more than skin deep,” said the housewife, as she stood with the kitchen door half open.

The miller winked at his friends when she had disappeared.

“Canst better that, Hal?” he enquired.

“Vanity to try,” replied the blacksmith. “A man's good enough maybe for the catching o' a salmon, but it needs a woman's deft fingers to cook it. You see through my proverb, miller?”

“It needs no spying glass, Hal,” said the miller. “The interpretation thereof is in purpose that it needs a woman's nimble wit to put a finishing touch to a simple man's discourse, howsoever well meant it may be. Eh, farmer?”

“'Tis different wi' pilchards, as is only natural, seeing what sort of eating they be,” said the farmer shrewdly; he found that he had been wittier than he had any notion of being, and he added his loudest chuckles (when he had recovered from his surprise) to the roaring of the miller's laughter.

It was Nelly Polwhele who demanded to be let into the secret of the merriment so soon as she had returned to the room with Susan, and when the miller told her, with an illuminating wink and a shrewd nod, she laughed in so musical a note with her hands uplifted that the farmer pursed out his lips in pride at his own wit. He was not without a hope that he might find out, in the course of the evening, wherein the point of it lay.

Meantime Nelly was looking anxiously around the room.

“What's gone wrong wi' the girl?” said the miller. “Oh, I see how things be: 'tis so long since she was here the place seems strange to her. Is't not so, Nelly?”

“Partly, sir,” replied the girl. “But mainly I was looking to see where Mr. Pullsford was hiding. You can't be supping in good style and he absent.”

“Give no heed to Mr. Pullsford, whether he be here or not; spend your time in telling us where you yourself have been hiding for the past month,” cried the miller.

“She has not been hiding, she has been doing just the opposite—displaying herself to the fashionable world,” said Susan.

“Hey, what's all this?” said the miller. “You don't mean to tell us that you've been as far as Plymouth?”

“Plymouth, indeed! Prithee, where's the rank and fashion at Plymouth, sir?” cried Nelly. “Nay, sir, 'tis to the Bath I have been, as befits one in my station in life.”

“The Bath?—never,” exclaimed the miller, while the girl, lifting up her dress with a dainty finger and thumb to the extent of an inch or two, went mincing past him down the room, followed by the eyes of the blacksmith and the others of the party. “'Tis in jest you speak, you young baggage—how would such as you ever get as far as the Bath?”

“It sounds like a fancy freak, doth it not truly; and yet 'tis the sober truth,” said Nelly. “At the Bath I was, and there I kept for a full month, in the very centre core of all the grandest that the world has in store. I didn't find myself a bit out of place, I protest.”

“Hear the girl!” exclaimed the miller. “She talks with the cold assurance of a lady of quality—not that I ever did meet with one to know; but—and the fun of it is that she wouldn't be out of place in the most extravagant company. Come, then, tell us how it came about. Who was it kidnapped thee?”

And then the girl told how it was that Squire Trelawny's young ladies at Court Royal, having lost their maid, owing to her marrying in haste, asked her to take the young woman's place for a month or two until they should get suited. As she had always been a favourite with them, she had consented, and they had forthwith set out for the Bath with the Squire's retinue of chariots and horsemen, and there they had sojourned for a month.

“'Tis, indeed, like a story o' pixies and their magic and the like,” said the miller. “I knew that the young ladies and you was ever on the best o' terms, but who could tell that it would come to such as this? And I'll wager my life that within a day and a night you could tire their hair and dust it wi' powder with the best of their ladyships' ladies. And, prithee, what saw you at the Bath besides the flunkies o' the quality?”

“Oh, sir, ask me not to relate to you all that I saw and noted,” said the girl. “Every day of my life I said, 'What a place the world is to be sure!'”

“And so it be,” said the farmer approvingly.

“Oh, the rank and fashion, farmer, such as would astonish even you, and you are a travelled man,” said she.

“Ay, I have been as wide afield as Falmouth on the west and Weymouth on the east,” said the farmer. “Ay, I know the world.”

“Your travels have ever been the talk of the six parishes, sir,” said the girl. “But among all the strange people that have come-under your eyes, I'll warrant you there was none stranger than you might find at the Bath. Have you ever in your travels crossed ladies sitting upright in stumpy sentry boxes with a stout fellow bearing it along the streets, winging 'twixt the pair o' poles?”

“Naught so curious truly; but I've seen honest and honourable men that had heard of such like,” said the farmer.

“And to think that I saw them with these eyes, and link boys, when there was no moon, and concerts of music in the Cave of Harmony, night by night, and two gentlemen fighting in a field—this was by chance, and my lady passing in a chariot sent forth a shriek, so that one pistol exploded before its time, and the bullet graded a peaceful gentleman, who they said was a doctor of physic coming quick across the meadow, scenting a fee!”

“Pity is 'twasn't a lawyer. I hoard the thought that in case o' a fight 'twixt friends, the lawyers hurry up as well as the doctors in hope of a job,” said the miller. “Well, you've seen the world a deal for one so young, Nelly,” he added.

“And the concerts of singing and the assemblies and the beautiful polite dance which they call the minuet were as nought when placed alongside the plays in the playhouse,” cried Nelly.

The miller became grave.

“There be some who see a wicked evil in going to the playhouse,” he remarked, with a more casual air than was easy to him.

“That I have heard,” said the girl.

“They say that a part o' the playhouse is called the pit,” suggested the farmer. “Ay, I saw the name over the door at Plymouth, as it maybe did you, miller.”

“And some jumped at the notion that that pit led to another of a bottomless sort?” said the girl. “Well, I don't say that'twas the remembrance of that only that drew me to the playhouse. I did get something of a shock, I allow, when my young ladies bade me attend them to the playhouse one night, but while I sought a fair excuse for 'biding at our lodging on the Mall, I found myself inventing excuses for obeying my orders, and I must say that I found it a good deal easier doing this than t'other.”

“Ay, ay, I doubt not that—oh, no, we doubt it not,” cried the miller, shaking his head.

Richard Pritchard shook his head also.

“I found myself saying, 'How can the playhouse be a place of evil when my good young ladies, who are all that is virtuous, find it a pleasure to go?'”

The miller shook his head more doubtfully than before.

“I think that you left the service of your young ladies in good time,” muttered the miller.

“Do not dare to say a word against them—against even Mistress Alice, who, I allow, hath a tantrum now and again, when the seamstress fails her in time or mode,” said the girl. “Of course when I reflected that I was but a servant, so to speak, and that my duty was to obey my mistresses, I would hesitate no longer. Duty is a virtue, sir, so I submitted without a complaint.”

“Ay, you would do that,” murmured the blacksmith.

“I said to myself——”

“Oh,” groaned the miller.

Nelly ignored the groan. She went on demurely from where she was interrupted.

“I said to myself, 'Should there be evil in it none can hold me blameworthy, since I was only obeying the order of them that were set over me.' I went and I was glad that I went, for I saw no evil in word or act.”

“I'm grieved to hear it, Nelly,” said the miller.

“What, you are grieved to hear that I saw nothing of evil? Oh, sir!”

“I mean that I don't like to think of a girl like thee in such a place, Nelly. But let's make the best of a bad matter and recount to us what you saw. It may be that by good fortune we may be able to find out the evil of it, so that you may shun it in future.”

“Alack, I fear the chance will not come to me in the future,” said Nelly mournfully.

“I trust not. Who was the actor that night, do you mind?” asked the miller.

“Her name was Mistress Woffington, and now I mind that one of my ladies said that Mr. Long had told her that Mistress Woffington had been to dinner with the learned provost of Dublin College in Ireland—a parson and a scholar.”

“Oh, an Irishman!” was the comment of the miller.

“Let the girl be, miller,” said Hal Holmes. “She's making a brave fight in the way of excusing herself. Go thy gait, Nell; give us a taste of the quality of this Mistress Woffington.”

“Oh, Hal, she is a beauty—I never thought that the world held such. The finest ladies of quality at the Bath, though they all copy her in her mode, are not fit to hold a candle to her. And her clothing and her modesty withal. They say she does the modest parts best of all.”

“Ay, I've heard that the likes of her are best in parts that have the least in common with themselves,” murmured the miller.

“Oh, to see her when she vowed that she would be true to her lover albeit that her ancient father, stamping about with a cudgel and a mighty wig, had promised her to a foolish fellow in yellow silk and an eyeglass with a long handle, and a foppish way of snuff-taking and a cambric handkerchief! La! how the lady made a fool of him under his very nose. This is Mistress Woffington: 'I protest, Sir, that I am but a simple girl, country bred, that is ready to sink into the earth at the approach of so dangerous a gentleman as your lordship.' And she make a little face at her true lover, who is getting very impatient, in blue and silver, at the other side of the room. 'Stap my vitals, madam,' lisps the jessamy, dangling his cane in this fashion—you should see them do it on the Mall—” She picked up a light broom that lay at the side of the hearth and made a very pretty swagger across the room with her body bent and her elbow raised in imitation of the exquisite of the period, quite unknown to Cornwall. “'Egad, my dear, for a country wench you are not without favour. To be sure, you lack the mode of the haut ton, but that will come to you in time if you only watch me—that is, to a certain extent. My lady, the Duchess says, “Charles is inimitable.” Ah, her Grace is a sad flatterer, 'fore Gad, but she sometimes speaks the truth.' 'What, Sir,' says the lady, 'do you think that in time I should catch some of your grand air? I beseech you, Sir, have pity on a poor simple maiden; do not raise false hopes in her breast.' 'Nay, pretty charmer, I do not dare to affirm that you will ever quite catch the full style—the air of breeding, so to speak; but you may still catch——' 'the smallpox, and faith, I think I would prefer it to him,' says Mrs. Woffington in a whisper, that all in the playhouse can hear. 'Eh, what's that?' lisps Mr. Floppington. 'Oh, sir, I was just saying that I fear I am sickening for the smallpox, which runs in our family as does the gout, only a deal faster.' 'Eh, what, what! keep away from me, girl, keep away, I tell you.' He retreats with uplifted hands; she follows him, with her own clasped, imploring him not to reject her. He waves his cane in front of her as if she was a bull ready to toss him. They both speak together, they run round the table, he springs upon the table, she tilts it over—down he goes crying, 'Murder—murder—stop her—hold her back!' He is on his feet again, his fine coat torn in half at the back. She catches at it and one whole side rips off in-her hand. He makes for the window—finds it too high to jump from—rushes to the door and down goes the lady's father, who is in the act of entering, with a bump, and down goes the fop with the half coat in the other direction. The lady sits drumming with her heels on the floor between them in a shrieking faint—thus!”

She flung herself into a chair and her shrieks sounded shrill above the laughter of the others.

Suddenly the laughter came to an abrupt end, as though it were cut in twain with a sharp knife. The girl continued for a few seconds shrieking and rapping her heels on the floor, her head thrown back; then she clearly became aware of the fact that something unusual had occurred. She looked up in surprise at the men on the settee, followed the direction of their eyes, and saw standing at the porch door a man of medium stature, wearing a long riding cloak and carrying a book in one hand. The doorway framed him. The dimness of the shadowy eventide made a background for his head, the candle which Susan had lighted in the room shone upon his face, revealing the thin, refined features of a man who was no longer young. His face was sweetness made visible—eyes that looked in brotherly trustfulness into the eyes of others, and that, consequently, drew trust from others—illimitable trust.

The girl stared at the stranger who had appeared in the doorway with such suddenness; and she saw what manner of man he was. There was an expression of mild surprise on his face while he looked at her, the central figure in the room; but she saw that there was a gentle smile about his eyes.

“I hope that I am not an intruder upon your gaiety,” said the stranger. “I knocked twice at the door, and then, hearing the shrieks of distress, I ventured to enter. I hoped to be of some assistance—shrieks mixed with laughter—well, I have stopped both.”

The miller was on his feet in a moment.

“Foolery, sir, girl's foolery all!” he said, going towards the stranger. “Pray, enter, if you can be persuaded that you are not entering a Bedlam mad-house.”

“Nay, sir,” said the newcomer. “'Twould be foolish to condemn simply because I do not understand. I am a stranger to this county of England; I have had no chance of becoming familiar with your pastimes. Dear child, forgive me if I broke in upon your merriment,” he added, turning to Nelly; “Good sir,”—he was now facing the miller—“I have ridden close upon thirty miles to-day—the last four in the want of a shoe; my horse must have cast it in the quagmire between the low hills. Yours was the first light that I saw—I was in hopes that it came from a blacksmith's forge.”

The miller laughed.

“'Tis better than that, good sir,” said he. “The truth is that the smith of these parts is a fellow not to be trusted by travellers: his forge is black tonight, unless his apprentices are better men than he. He is a huge eater of salmon and divers dainties, and he will drink as much as a mugful of cider before the night is past.”

“But he is a fellow that is ready to sacrifice a cut of salmon and a gallon of cider to earn a sixpence for a shoe, sir,” said Hal Holmes, rising from the settee and giving himself a shake. “In short, sir, I be Holmes, the smith, whose lewd character has been notified to your honour, and if you trust me with your nag, I'll promise you to fit a shoe on him within the half-hour.”

The stranger looked from the smith to the miller, and back again to the smith, and his smile broadened.

“Good neighbours both, I can see,” he said. “I thank you, smith. How far is it to Porthawn, pray, and what may this placed be called?”

Before he could be answered the door opened and Jake Pullsford entered the room. The sound of his entrance caused the stranger to turn his head. Jake gave an exclamation of surprise.

“Mr. Wesley!” he said in a whisper that had something of awe in its tone. “Mr. Wesley! How is this possible? I have spent the afternoon talking of you, sir.”

At the sound of the name the miller glanced meaningly at the smith. They were plainly surprised.

“Well, my brother,” said Mr. Wesley, “I ask nothing better than to give you the chance of talking to me for the next hour. I remember you well. You are Jake Pullsford, who came to see me a month ago at Bristol. You have been much in my thoughts—in my prayers.”