Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts written by A. T. Quiller Couch

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First of all, you must know, that up to the year 'three Abe Cummins and
Bill Bosistow hadn't known what it is to quarrel or miss meeting each
other every day. They went to school together, and then to the fishing,
and afterwards they sailed together with the free-traders over to
Mount's Bay, and good seamen the both, though not a bit alike in looks
and ways. Abe, the elder by a year, was a bit slow and heavy on his
pins; given to reading, too, though he seemed to take it up for peace
and quietness more than for any show he made of his learning. Bill was
smarter altogether and better looking; a bit boastful, after the manner
of young chaps. He could read too, but never did much at it, though
I've heard that on Saturday nights he was fond of ranting verses--stuff
about drink and such like--out of a book of Robert Burns's poetry he'd
borrowed off Abe.

You'd hardly have thought two young fellows so different in every way
could have hit it off as they did. But these were like two figures in a
puzzle-block; their very differences seemed to make them fit.
There never was such a pair since David and Jonathan, and I believe
'twas partly this that kept them from running after girls. So far as I
can see, the most of the lads begin at seventeen; but these two held off
sweethearting right along until Christmas of the year 'three when they
came home from Porthleven to spend a fortnight at Ardevora, and they
both fell in love with Selina Johns.

Selina Johns wasn't but just husband-high; turned sixteen and her hair
only put up a week before, she having begged her mother's leave to twist
it in plaits for the Christmas courants. And Abe and Billy each knew
the other's secret almost before he knew his own, for each, as you may
say, kept his heart like a window and looked into his friend's window
first.

And what they did was to have it out like good fellows, and agree to
wait a couple of years, unless any third party should interfere. In two
years' time, they agreed, Selina Johns would be wise enough to choose--
and then let the best man win! No bad blood afterwards, and meanwhile
no more talk than necessary--they shook hands upon that. That January,
being tired of the free-trade, they shipped together on board a coaster
for the Thames, and re-shipped for the voyage homeward on board the brig
_Hand and Glove_, of London.

The _Hand and Glove_, Uriah Wilcox, master, was bound for Devonport with
a cargo of copper and flour for the dockyard there, and came to anchor
in the Downs on March 24th to join convoy under the _Spider_ gun-brig.
On the 25th (a Sunday) it blew hard from north to west, and she let go
sheet anchor. Next day the weather moderated a bit, and, heaving up her
sheet anchor, she rode to her best bower. On the Tuesday, the wind
having fallen light, the master took off a new longboat from Deal.
There was some hitch in delivering her, and she was scarcely brought
alongside by five the next morning when the Commodore signalled to get
under weigh.

By reason of this delay, the _Hand and Glove_ was taken unawares, and
started well astern of the fleet, which numbered over twenty sail of
merchantmen; and, being a sluggard in anything short of half a gale, she
made up precious little way in the light E.N.E. breeze.

Soon after seven that evening, Beachy Head bearing N.W. by W. four miles
and a half, Abe Cummins on the look-out forward spied a lugger coming
towards shore upon a wind. She crossed well ahead of the _Hand and
Glove_, and close--as it looked--under the stem of an East Indiaman
which was then busy reefing topsails before night. For a while Abe lost
sight of her under the dark of the land; but by-and-by the wheelman took
a glance over his shoulder, and there she was, creeping up close astern.
His call fetched up Captain Wilcox, who ran aft and hailed, but got no
reply. And so she came on, until, sheering close up under the _Hand and
Glove's_ port quarter, she was able to heave a grapnel on board and
throw twenty well-armed Johnnies into the old brig. The Englishmen--
seven in all, and taken unprepared--were soon driven below and shut
down--four in the cabin, two in the steerage, and one in the forecastle,
this last being Abe Cummins. After a while the sentry over the hatchway
called for him to come up and show where the leading ropes were, which
he did at the point of a cutlass. And precious soon the Johnnies had
altered the brig's course and stood away for the coast of France, the
lugger keeping her company all night.

Early next morning the two vessels were close off Dieppe Harbour; and
there, when the tide suited, they were taken inside, and the prisoners
put ashore at nightfall and lodged for three days in a filthy round
tower, swarming with vermin. On April 1--Easter Sunday, I've heard it
was--they were told to get ready for marching, and handed over, making
twenty-five in all, with the crews of two other vessels, both brigs--the
_Lisbon Packet_, bound from London to Falmouth with a general cargo, and
the _Margaret_, letter of marque of London, bound from Zante, laden with
currants--to a lieutenant and a guard of foot soldiers. Not a man of
them knew where they were bound. They set out through a main pretty
country, where the wheat stood nearabouts knee-high, but the roads were
heavy after the spring rains. Each man had seven shillings in his
pocket, given him at parting by the captain of his vessel--the three
captains had been left behind at Dieppe--and on they trudged for just a
fortnight on an allowance of 1 lb. of brown bread and twopence-halfpenny
per man per day; the bread served out regular and the money, so to say,
when they could get it. Mostly they came to a town for their night's
halt, and as often as not the townsfolk drummed them to jail with what
we call the "Rogue's March," but in France I believe it's "Honours of
War," or something that sounds politer than 'tis. But there were times
when they had to put up at a farm house by the road, and then the poor
chaps slept on straw for a treat.

Well, on the last day of the fortnight they reached their journey's
end--a great fortress on a rock standing right over the river, with a
town lying around the foot of the rock, and a smaller town, reached by a
bridge of boats, on the far side of the river. I can't call to mind the
name of the river, but the towns were called Jivvy--Great and Little
Jivvy. [1] The prison stood at the very top of the rock, on the edge of
a cliff that dropped a clean 300 feet to the river: not at all a pretty
place to get clear of, and none so cheerful to live in on a day's
allowance of one pound of brown bread, half a pound of bullock's offal,
three-halfpence in money (paid weekly, and the most of it deducted for
prison repairs, if you please!), and now and then a noggin of peas for a
treat. They found half a dozen ships' companies already there, and
enjoying themselves on this diet; the crew of the _Minerva_ frigate, run
ashore off Cherbourg; the crew of the _Hussar_, wrecked outside Brest;
and--so queerly things fall out in this world--among them a parcel of
poor fellows from Ardevora, taken on board the privateer _Recovery_ of
this port.

To keep to my story, though--which is about Abe Cummins and Billy
Bosistow. It was just in these unhappy conditions that the difference
in the two men came out. Abe took his downfall very quiet from the
first. He had managed to keep a book in his pocket--a book of voyages
it was--and carry it with him all the way from Dieppe, and it really
didn't seem to matter to him that he was shut up, so long as he could
sit in a corner and read about other folks travelling. In the second
year of their captivity an English clergyman, a Mr. Wolfe, came to
Jivvy, and got leave from the Commandant to fit up part of the prison
granary for a place of worship and preach to the prisoners. It had a
good effect on the men in general, and Abe in particular turned very
religious. Mr. Wolfe took a fancy to him, and lent him an old book on
"Navigation"--Hamilton Moore's; and over that Abe would sit by the hour,
with his room-mates drunk and fighting round him, and copy out tables
and work out sums. All his money went in pen and ink instead of the
liquor which the jailors smuggled in.

Billy Bosistow was a very different pair of shoes. Although no drinker
by habit, he fretted and wore himself down at times to a lowness of
spirits in which nothing seemed to serve him but drinking, and fierce
drinking. On his better days he was everybody's favourite; but when the
mood fell on him he grew teasy as a bear with a sore head, and fit to
set his right hand quarrelling with his left. Then came the drinking
fit, and he'd wake out of that like a man dazed, sitting in a corner and
brooding for days together. What he brooded on, of course, was means of
escape. At first, like every other prisoner in Jivvy, he had kept
himself cheerful with hopes of exchange, but it seemed the folks home in
Ardevora had given up trying for a release, or else letters never
reached them. And yet they must have known something of the case their
poor kinsmen were in, for in the second year the Commandant sent for Abe
and Billy, and informed them that, by the kindness of a young English
lady, a Miss Selina Johns, their allowance was increased by two sols a
day. He showed them no letter, but the increase was paid regularly for
eight months; after which a new Commandant came, and it ceased. They
could never find out if the supply ceased, or into whose pocket it went
if it came.

From that time Bosistow had two things to brood upon--escape and Selina.
But confinement is the ruination of some natures, and as year after year
went by and his wits broke themselves on a stone wall, he grew into a
very different man from the handy lad the Johnnies had taken prisoner.
One thing he never gave up, and that was his pluck; and he had plenty of
use for it when, after seven years, his chance came.

His first contrivance was to change names with an old American in the
depot. It so happened that the captain of a French privateer had
applied to the prison for a crew of foreigners to man his ship, then
lying at Morlaix. The trick, by oiling the jailor's palm, was managed
easily enough, and away Bosistow was marched with twenty comrades of all
nations. But at the first stage some recruiting officers stopped them,
insisting that they were Irish and not Americans, and must be enlisted
to serve with Bonaparty's army in Spain. The prisoners to a man refused
to hear of it, and the end was they were marched back to prison in
disgrace, and, to cap everything, had their English allowance stopped on
pretence that they had been in the French service. Yet this brought him
a second chance, for being now declared an Irishman he managed to get
himself locked up with the Irish, who had their quarters on the handier
side of the prison; and that same night broke out of window with two
other fellows, got over the prison wall, and hid in the woods beyond.
But on the second day a party of wood-rangers attacked them with guns
and captured them; and back they went, and were condemned to six years
in irons.

This, as it turned out, didn't amount to much; for, while they were
waiting to be marched off to the galleys, their jailor came with news
that a son was born to the Emperor, and they were pardoned in honour of
it. But instead of putting them back in their old quarters, he fixed
them up for a fortnight in a room by themselves, being fearful that such
bad characters would contaminate the other prisoners. This room was an
upstairs one in a building on the edge of the ramparts, and after a few
nights they broke through the ceiling into an empty chamber, which had a
window looking on the roof. With a rope made of their bedclothes they
lowered themselves clean over the ramparts on to the edge of the
precipice over the river; and along this they passed--having no daylight
to make them giddy--and took their way northwards across the fields.

Well, it doesn't come into my tale to tell you what they went through.
Bosistow wrote out an account of it years after, and you shall read it
for yourself. At one place they had to cross a river, and Billy being,
like the most of our fishermen, no swimmer, his mates stuck him on a
hurdle and pushed him over while they swam behind. They steered by the
Pole Star (for, you understand, they could only travel by night) and
also by a fine comet which they guessed to be in the north-west quarter.

You see the difference between these two fellows, and how little
Providence made of it. Back in Jivvy, Abe Cummins was staring at this
same comet out of his prison windows, and doing his sums and thinking of
Selina Johns. And here was Bosistow following it up for freedom--with
the upshot that he made the coast and was taken like a lamb in the
attempt to hire a passage, and marched in irons from one jail to
another, and then clean back the whole length of France, pretty well to
the Mediterranean Sea. And then he was shut up in a prison on the very
top of the Alps [2] and twice as far from home as he had been in Jivvy.
That's a moral against folks in a hurry if ever there was one.

Well, let alone that while he was here he received a free pardon from
the Emperor, which his persecutors took no notice of, he broke out of
prison again, and was caught and brought back half-starving.
And 'twasn't till Christmas of the year 'thirteen that orders came to
march him right away north again, with all the prisoners, to a place in
the Netherlands; and no sooner arrived than away to go again three
hundred and fifty miles west-sou'-west for Tours, on the Loire river.
I've figured it out on the map, and even that is enough to make a man
feel sore in his feet. But what made Bosistow glad at the time, and
vicious after, was that on his way he fell in with a draft of prisoners,
and, among them, with Abe Cummins, who, so to say, had reached the same
place by walking a tenth part of the distance. And, what's more, though
a man couldn't very well get sleek in Jivvy, Abe had kept his bones
filled out somehow, and knew enough navigation by this time to set a
course to the Channel Fleet. 'Deed, that's what he began talking about
on the first day's journey he and Billy trudged together after their
meeting. And he began it after a spell of silence by asking, quiet
like, "Have you been happening to think much about Selina Johns this
last year or two?"

"Most every day," answered Billy.

"So have I," said Abe, and seemed to be pondering to himself. "She'll
be a woman growed by this time," he went on.

"Turnin' twenty-seven," Billy agreed.

"That's of it," said Abe. "I've been thinking about her, constant."

"Well, look'ee here," spoke up Billy, "our little agreement holds, don't
it?--that is, if we ever get out of this here mess, and Selina hasn't
gone and taken a husband. Play fair, leave it to the maid, and let the
best man win; that's what we shook hands over. If that holds, seemin'
to me the rest can wait."

"True, true," says Abe; but after a bit he asks rather sly-like:
"And s'posin' you're the lucky one, how do'ee reckon you're going to
maintain her?"

"Why, on seaman's wages, I suppose; or else at the shoe-mending.
I learnt a little of that trade in Jivvy, as you d'know."

"Well," says Abe, "I was reckonin' to set up school and teach
navigation. Back in Ardevora I can make between seventy and eighty
pounds a year at that game easy."

Bosistow scratched his head. "You've been making the most of your time.
Now I've been busy in my way, too, but seemin' to me the only trade I've
learned is prison-breakin'. Not much to keep a wife on, as you say.
Still, a bargain's a bargain."

"Oh, sutt'nly," says Abe; "that is if your conscience allows it."

"I reckon I'll risk that," answers Billy, and no more passed.

From Tours the prisoners tramped south-east again, to a town called
Riou, in the middle of France, and reached it in a snowstorm on March 1.
Here they were billeted for five weeks or so, and here, one night, they
were waked up and told that Bonaparty had gone scat, and they must come
forth and dance with the townspeople in honour of it. You may be sure
they heeled and toed it that night, and no girl satisfied unless she had
an Englishman for a partner. But the next day it all turned out to be
lies, and off they were marched again. To be short, 'twasn't till the
end of April that they came to the river opposite Bordeaux, and were
taken in charge by English red-coats, who told them they were free men.
On the 28th of that month Abe and Billy, with forty others, were put on
board a sloop and dropped down the river to the _Dartmouth_ frigate,
from which they were drafted on to the _Lord Wellington_, and again on
to the _Suffolk_ transport. And on May 4 the _Suffolk_, with six other
transports, having about fifteen hundred released prisoners on board,
weighed anchor under convoy for Plymouth before a fine breeze, S.E. by
S.

On Monday, May 9, at half-past two in the afternoon--the wind still
steady in the same quarter, and blowing fresh--the _Suffolk_ sighted
land, making out St. Michael's Mount; and fetching up to Mousehole
Island, the captain hailed a mackerel boat to come alongside and take
ashore some officers with despatches.

Abe Cummins and Billy Bosistow were both on deck, you may be sure,
watching the boat as the fishermen brought her alongside. Not a word
had been said between them on the matter that lay closest to their
minds, but while they waited Billy fetched a look at the boat and
another at Abe. "The best man wins," he said to himself, and edged away
towards the ladder.

The breeze, as I said, was a fresh one, with a sea in the bay that kept
the _Suffolk_ rolling like a porpoise. A heavier lurch than ordinary
sent her main channels grinding down on the mackerel boat's gunwale,
smashing her upper strakes and springing her mizzen mast as she
recovered herself.

"Be dashed," said one of the officers, "if I trust myself in a boat
that'll go down under us between this and land!"

The rest seemed to be of his mind, too. But Billy, being quick as well
as eager, saw in a moment that the damaged strakes would be to windward
on the reach into Mousehole, and well out of harm's way in the wind then
blowing, and also that her mainsail alone would do the job easy.
So just as she fell off and her crew ran aft to get the mizzen lug
stowed he took a run past the officer and jumped aboard, with two
fellows close on his heels--one a Penzance fellow whose name I've
forgot, and the t'other a chap from Ludgvan, Harry Cornish by name.
I reckon the sight of the old shores just made them mazed as sheep, and
like sheep they followed his lead. The officers ran to stop any more
from copying such foolishness; and if they hadn't, I believe the boat
would have been swamped there and then. As 'twas, she re-hoisted her
big lug and away-to-go for Mousehole, the three passengers sitting down
to leeward with their sterns in and out of the water to help keep her
damaged side above mischief.

So on Mousehole Quay these three stepped ashore, and the first man to
shake hands with them was Capen Josiah Penny, of the _Perseverance_
trading ketch, then lying snug in Mousehole Harbour. Being a hearty man
he invited them down to his cabin to take a drop of rum. The Penzance
fellow, having only a short way to trudge, said "No, thank'ee," and
started for home with a small crowd after him. But Bosistow and Cornish
agreed 'twould be more neighbourly to accept, and, to tell the truth,
they didn't quite know how to behave with so many eyes upon them.
Cornish had on a soldier's red jacket with white facings, and a pair of
blue trousers out at the knees, while Bosistow's trousers were of white
cloth, and he carried a japanned knapsack at the back of his red shirt:
and with a white-painted straw hat apiece, you may guess they felt
themselves looking like two figures of fun.

So down they went to the _Perseverance's_ cabin, and Capen Penny mixed
them a stiff glass of rum and called them fine fellows, and mixed them
two more glasses while they talked; and when the time came to say
"so long," Billy was quite sure he didn't care for appearances one snap
of his fingers.

They linked arms on the quay, where they found a crowd waiting for them,
and many with questions to ask about absent friends, so that from
Mousehole to Penzance it was a regular procession. And then they had to
go to the hotel and tell the whole story over again, and answer a
thousand and one questions about Penzance boys imprisoned at Jivvy.
And all this meant more rum, of course.

It was seven in the evening, and day closing in, before they took the
road again. Billy had fallen into a boastful mood, and felt his heart
so warm towards Cornish that nothing would do but they must tramp it
together so far as Nancledrea, which was a goodish bit out of Cornish's
road to Ludgvan. By the time they reached Nancledrea Billy was shedding
tears and begging Cornish to come along to Ardevora. "I'll make a man
of 'ee there," he promised: "I will sure 'nough!" But Cornish weighed
the offer, and decided that his mother at Ludgvan would be going to bed
before long. So coming to a house with red blinds and lights within
they determined to have a drink before parting.

In the tap-room they found a dozen fellows or so drinking their beer and
smoking solemn, and an upstanding woman in a black gown attending on
them. "Hullo!" says one of the men looking up, "What's this?
Geezy-dancers?" [3]

"I'll soon tell 'ee about Geezy-dancers," says Billy. "Here, Missus--a
pot of ale all round, and let 'em drink to two Cornish boys home from
festerin' in French war prisons, while they've a'been diggin' taties!"

There was no resisting a sociable offer like this, and in two two's, as
you might say, Billy was boasting ahead for all he was worth, and the
company with their mouths open--all but the landlady, who was opening
her eyes instead, and wider and wider.

"There isn' none present that remembers me, I dare say. My name's
Bosistow--Billy Bosistow--from Ardevora parish. And back there I'm
going this very night, and why? you ask. I ben't one of your
taty-diggin' slowheads--_I_ ben't. I've broke out of prison three
times, and now--" He nodded at the company, whose faces by this time he
couldn't very well pick out of a heap--"do any of 'ee know a maid there
called Selina Johns? Because if so I warn 'ee of her. 'Why?' says you.
Because that's the maid I'm goin' to marry, and I'm off to Ardevora to
do it straight. Another pot of beer, please, missus."

"You've had a plenty, sir, seemin' to me," answered up the landlady,
while the company tittered.

"And is this the way"--Billy stood up very dignified--"is this the way
to welcome home a man who bled for his country? Is this your
gratitude to a man who's spent ten o' the best years of his life in
slavery while you've been diggin' taties?" I can't tell you why
potatoes ran so much in the poor fellow's head; but they did, and he
seemed to see the hoeing of them almost in the light of a personal
injury. He spat on the floor. "And as for you, madam, these here boots
of mine have tramped thousands of miles, and I shake off their dust upon
you," he says.

"I wish you'd confine yourself to that, with your dirty habits!" the
landlady answered up again, but Billy marched out with great dignity
which was only spoiled by his mistaking the shadow across the doorway
for a raised step. He didn't forget to slam the door after him; but he
did forget to take leave of Harry Cornish, who had walked so far out of
his way in pure friendliness.

For the first mile or so, what with his anger and the fresh air, Billy
had a to-do to keep his pins and fix his mind on the road.
But by-and-by his brain cleared a bit, and when he reached the hill over
Ardevora, and saw the lights of the town below him, his mood changed,
and he sat down on the turf of the slope with tears in his eyes.

"There you be," said he, talking to the lights, "and here be I; and
somewheres down amongst you is the dear maid I've come to marry.
Not much welcome for me in Ardevora, I b'law, though I do love every
stone of her streets. But there's one there that didn' forget me in my
captivity, and won't despise me in these here rags. I wish I'd seen
Abe's face when I jumped aboard the boat. Poor old Abe!--but all's fair
in love and war, I reckon. He can't be here till to-morrow at earliest,
so let's have a pipe o' baccy on it."

He lit up and sucked away at his pipe, still considering the lights in
the valley. Somehow they put him in mind of Abe, and how in the old
days he and Abe used to come on them shining just so on their way home
on Saturday nights from Bessie's Cove. Poor old mate!--first of all he
pictured Abe's chap-fallen face, and chuckled; then he began to wonder
if Abe would call it fair play. But all was fair in love and war: he
kept saying this over to himself, and then lit another pipe to think it
out.

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