IV.

Half-an-hour later, William Geake was standing by his garden-gate again. Every now and then he glanced down the road towards St. Austell, and after each glance resumed his nervous picking at the blister of green paint that had troubled him earlier in the day. He was face to face with a new and smaller, but sufficiently vexing, difficulty. Abe Bricknell had gone, taking with him the five five-pound notes. So far so good, and cheap at the price. But the skivet was empty: and the day was Saturday: and every Saturday evening, as regularly as he wound up the big eight-day clock in the kitchen, Naomi and he would sit down and count over the money. True he had only to go to St. Austell and Messrs. Climo and Hodges would let him draw five new notes. The numbers would be different, and Naomi (prudent woman) always took note of the numbers: but some explanation might be invented. The problem was: How to get to St. Austell and back before Naomi's return? The distance was too great to be walked in the time; and besides, the coffin must be ready by nightfall. He had promised it; he was known for a man of his word; and owing to the morning's interruption it would be a tough job to finish, at the best. There was no help for it; and—so easy is the descent of Avernus—Geake's unaccustomed wits were already wandering in a wilderness of improbable falsehoods, when he heard the sound of wheels up the road, and Long Oliver came along in Farmer Lear's red-wheeled trap and behind Farmer Lear's dun-coloured mare. As he drew near at a trot he eyed Geake curiously, and for a moment seemed inclined to pull up, but thought better of it, and was passing with no more than a nod of the head and "good-day."

It was unusual, though, to see Long Oliver driving a horse and trap; and Geake, moreover, had a sudden notion.

"Good-mornin'," he answered; "whither bound?"

"St. Austell. I've a bit of business to do, so I'm takin' a holiday; in style, as you see."

"I wonder now," Geake suggested, forgetting all about the coffin, "if you'd give me a lift. I was just thinkin' this moment that I'd a bit o' business there that had clean slipped my mind this week."

This was transparently false to any one acquainted with Geake's methodical habits. Long Oliver screwed up his eyes.

"Can't, I'm afraid. I'm engaged to take up old Missus Oke an' her niece at Tippet's corner; an' the niece's box. The gal's goin' in to St. Austell, into service. So there's no room. But if there's any little message I can take—"

"When'll you be back?"

"Somewhere's about five I'll be passin'."

"Would 'ee mind waitin' a moment? I've a cheque I want cashed at Climo and Hodges for a biggish sum: but you'm a man I can trust to bring back the money safe."

"Sutt'nly," said Long Oliver.

Geake went into the house and wrote a short letter to the bankers. He asked them to send back by messenger, and in return for cheque enclosed, the sum of twenty-five pounds, in five new five-pound notes. He was aware (he said) that the balance of his running account was but a pound or two: but as they held something over fifty pounds of his on deposit, he felt sure they would oblige him and enable him to meet a sudden call.

"Twenty-five pounds is the sum," he explained; "an' you must be sure to get it in five-pound notes—new five-pound notes. You'll not forget that?" He closed the envelope and handed it up to Long Oliver, who buttoned it in his breast-pocket.

"You shall have it, Mr. Geake, by five o'clock this evenin'," said he, giving the reins a shake on the mare's back; "so 'long!" and he rattled off.

A mile, and a trifle more, beyond Geake's cottage, he came in sight of a man clad in blue sailor's cloth, trudging briskly ahead. Long Oliver's lips shaped themselves as if to whistle; but he made no sound until he overtook the pedestrian, when he pulled up, looked round in the man's face, and said—

"Abe Bricknell!"

The sailor came to a sudden halt, and went very white in the face.

"How do you know my name?" he asked, uneasily.

"'Recognised 'ee back in Troy, an' borrowed this here trap to drive after 'ee. Get up alongside. I've summat to say to 'ee."

Bricknell climbed up without a word, and they drove along together.

"Where was you goin'?" Long Oliver asked, after a bit.

"To Charlestown."

"To look for a ship?"

"Yes."

"Goin' back to America?"

"Yes."

"You've been callin' on William Geake: an' you didn' find Naomi at home."

"Geake don't want it known."

"That's likely enough. You've got twenty-five pound' o' his in your pocket."

Abe Bricknell involuntarily put up a hand to his breast.

"Ay, it's there," said Long Oliver, nodding. "It's odd now, but I've got twenty-five pound in gold in my pocket; an' I want you to swop."

"I don't take ye, Mister—"

"Long Oliver, I'm called in common. Maybe you remembers me?"

"Why, to be sure! I thought I minded your face. But still I don't take your meanin' azactly."

"I didn' suppose you would. So I'm goin' to tell 'ee. Fourteen year' back I courted Naomi, an' she used me worse 'n a dog. Twelve year' back she married you. Nine year' back you went to sea in the John S. Hancock, an' was wrecked off the Leeward Isles an' cast up on a spit o' rock. I'd been hangin' about New Orleens, just then, at a loose end, an' bein' in want o' cash, took a scamper in the Shawanee, a dirty tramp of a schooner knockin' in an' out and peddlin' notions among the West Indy Islanders. As you know we caught sight o' your signal an' took you off, an' you went to a mad-house. You was clean off your head an' didn' know me from Adam; an' I never let on that I knew you or the ship you'd sailed in. 'Seemed to me the hand o' God was in it, an' I saw my way to cry quits wi' Naomi."

"I don't see."

"I don't suppose you do. But 'twas this way:—Naomi (thinks I) 'll be givin' this man up afore long. She's a takeable woman, an' by-'n-bye, some new man'll set eyes on her. Then, thinks I, her banns'll be called in Church, an' I'll be there an' forbid 'em. Do 'ee see now?"

"That was very clever o' you," replied the simple seaman, and added with obvious sincerity, "I'm sure I should never ha' thought 'pon anything so clever as that. But why didn' you carry it out?"

"Because God Almighty was cleverer. Times an' times I'd pictured it up in my head how 'twould all work out; an' the parson in his surplice stuck all of a heap; an' the heads turnin' to look; an' the women faintin'. An' when the moment came for a man to claim her, what d'ye think she did? But there, a head like yours 'd never guess—why she went to a Registry Office, an' there weren't no banns at all. That overcame me. I seed the wisdom o' Providence from that hour. I be a converted man. An' I'm damned if I'll let you come along an' upset the apple-cart after all these years. Can 'ee write?"

"Tolerable, though I'm no hand at spellin'."

"Very well. We'll have a drink together at St. Austell, an' while we're there you shall do up Geake's notes in an envelope with a note sayin' your compliments, but on second thoughts you couldn't think o' takin' his money."

Bricknell's face fell somewhat.

"You gowk! You'll have twenty-five pound' o' mine in exchange: solid money, an' my own earnin's. I've more 'n that in my pocket here."

"But I don't see why you should want to give me money."

"An' you'm too mad to see if I explained. 'Tis a matter o' conscience, an' you may take it at that. When the letter's wrote—best not sign it, by the way, for fear of accidents—you give it to me an' I'll see Geake gets it to-night. After that's written I'll pay your fare to Liverpool, an' then you'll get a vessel easy. Now I see your mouth openin' and makin' ready to argue—"

"I was goin' to say, Long Oliver, that you seem to be actin' very noble, now: but 'twas a bit hard on me, your holdin' your tongue as you did."

"So 'twas, so 'twas. I reckon some folks is by nature easy forgotten, an' you'm one. If that's your character, I hope to gracious you'm goin' to keep it up. An' twenty-five pound' is a heap o' money for such a man as you."

"It is," the wanderer asserted. "Ay, I feel that."

At twenty minutes to five that evening, Long Oliver pulled up again by the green garden-gate. William Geake from his workshop had caught the sound of the mare's hoofs three minutes before, and awaited him.

"One, two, three, four, five." The notes were counted out deliberately. Long Oliver, having been thanked, gathered up his reins and suddenly set them down again.

"Dear me," said he, "if I hadn' almost forgot! I've a letter for 'ee, too."

"Eh?"

"Iss. A kind of a sailor-like lookin' chap came up to me i' the Half Moon yard as I was a takin' out the mare. 'Do you come from Gantick?' says he, seein' no doubt Farmer Lear's name 'pon the cart. 'There or thereabouts,' says I. 'Know Mister W. Geake?' says he. 'Well,' says I. 'Then, if you're passin', I wish you'd give 'en this here letter,' says he, an' that's all 'e said."

"I wonder who 'twas," said Geake. But his face was white.

"Don't know 'en by sight. Said 'e was in a great hurry for to catch the up train. Which puts me i' mind I must be movin' on. Good-night t'ye, neighbour!"

As soon as he had turned the corner, Geake opened the letter.

* * * * *

When Naomi returned, half-an-hour later, she found him standing at the gate as if he had spent the day there: as, indeed, he might have, for all the work done to the coffin.

"I must bide up to-night an' finish that job," he said, when they were indoors and she began asking how in the world he had been spending his time. "I've been worryin' mysel' all day."

"It's those sermons agen," Naomi decided. "They do your head no good, an' I wish you'd give up preachin'."

"Now that's just what I'm goin' to do," he answered, pushing the Bible far into the shelf till its edges knocked on the wood of the skivet-drawer.