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

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"Then it was simple. I traced the sound to the pantry. 'Mrs. Carkeek
has left the tap running,' said I: and, sure enough, I found it so--a
thin trickle steadily running to waste in the porcelain basin. I turned
off the tap, went contentedly back to my bed, and slept.

"--for some hours. I opened my eyes in darkness, and at once knew what
had awakened me. The tap was running again. Now it had shut easily in
my hand, but not so easily that I could believe it had slipped open
again of its own accord. 'This is Mrs. Carkeek's doing,' said I; and am
afraid I added 'Bother Mrs. Carkeek!'

"Well, there was no help for it: so I struck a light, looked at my
watch, saw that the hour was just three o'clock, and descended the
stairs again. At the pantry door I paused. I was not afraid--not one
little bit. In fact the notion that anything might be wrong had never
crossed my mind. But I remember thinking, with my hand on the door,
that if Mrs. Carkeek were in the pantry I might happen to give her a
severe fright.

"I pushed the door open briskly. Mrs. Carkeek was not there.
But something _was_ there, by the porcelain basin--something which might
have sent me scurrying upstairs two steps at a time, but which as a
matter of fact held me to the spot. My heart seemed to stand still--so
still! And in the stillness I remember setting down the brass
candlestick on a tall nest of drawers beside me.

"Over the porcelain basin and beneath the water trickling from the tap I
saw two hands.

"That was all--two small hands, a child's hands. I cannot tell you how
they ended.

"No: they were not cut off. I saw them quite distinctly: just a pair of
small hands and the wrists, and after that--nothing. They were moving
briskly--washing themselves clean. I saw the water trickle and splash
over them--not _through_ them--but just as it would on real hands.
They were the hands of a little girl, too. Oh, yes, I was sure of that
at once. Boys and girls wash their hands differently. I can't just
tell you what the difference is, but it's unmistakable.

"I saw all this before my candle slipped and fell with a crash. I had
set it down without looking--for my eyes were fixed on the basin--and
had balanced it on the edge of the nest of drawers. After the crash, in
the darkness there, with the water running, I suffered some bad moments.
Oddly enough, the thought uppermost with me was that I _must_ shut off
that tap before escaping. I _had_ to. And after a while I picked up
all my courage, so to say, between my teeth, and with a little sob
thrust out my hand and did it. Then I fled.

"The dawn was close upon me: and as soon as the sky reddened I took my
bath, dressed and went downstairs. And there at the pantry door I found
Mrs. Carkeek, also dressed, with my candlestick in her hand.

"'Ah!' said I, 'you picked it up.'

"Our eyes met. Clearly Mrs. Carkeek wished me to begin, and I
determined at once to have it out with her.

"'And you knew all about it. That's what accounts for your plugging up
the cistern.'

"'You saw? . . .' she began.

"'Yes, yes. And you must tell me all about it--never mind how bad.
Is--is it--murder?'

"'Law bless you, miss, whatever put such horrors in your head?'

"'She was washing her hands.'

"'Ah, so she does, poor dear! But--murder! And dear little Miss
Margaret, that wouldn't go to hurt a fly!'

"'Miss Margaret?'

"'Eh, she died at seven year. Squire Kendall's only daughter; and
that's over twenty year ago. I was her nurse, miss, and I know--
diphtheria it was; she took it down in the village.'

"'But how do you know it is Margaret?'

"'Those hands--why, how could I mistake, that used to be her nurse?'

"'But why does she wash them?'

"'Well, miss, being always a dainty child--and the house-work, you
see--'

"I took a long breath. 'Do you mean to tell me that all this tidying
and dusting--' I broke off. 'Is it _she_ who has been taking this care
of me?'

"Mrs. Carkeek met my look steadily.

"'Who else, miss?'

"'Poor little soul!'

"'Well now'--Mrs. Carkeek rubbed my candlestick with the edge of her
apron--'I'm so glad you take it like this. For there isn't really
nothing to be afraid of--is there?' She eyed me wistfully. 'It's my
belief she loves you, miss. But only to think what a time she must have
had with the others!'

"'The others?' I echoed.

"'The other tenants, miss: the ones afore you.'

"'Were they bad?'

"'They was awful. Didn't Farmer Hosking tell you? They carried on
fearful--one after another, and each one worse than the last."

"'What was the matter with them? Drink?'

"'Drink, miss, with some of 'em. There was the Major--he used to go mad
with it, and run about the coombe in his nightshirt. Oh, scandalous!
And his wife drank too--that is, if she ever _was_ his wife. Just think
of that tender child washing Up after their nasty doings!'

"I shivered.

"'But that wasn't the worst, miss--not by a long way. There was a pair
here--from the colonies, or so they gave out--with two children, a boy
and gel, the eldest scarce six. Poor mites!'

"'Why, what happened?'

"'They beat those children, miss--your blood would boil!--_and_ starved,
_and_ tortured 'em, it's my belief. You could hear their screams, I've
been told, away back in the high-road, and that's the best part of half
a mile. Sometimes they was locked up without food for days together.
But it's my belief that little Miss Margaret managed to feed them
somehow. Oh, I can see her, creeping to the door and comforting!'

"'But perhaps she never showed herself when these awful people were
here, but took to flight until they left.'

"'You didn't never know her, miss. The brave she was! She'd have stood
up to lions. She've been here all the while: and only to think what her
innocent eyes and ears must have took in! There was another couple--'
Mrs. Carkeek sunk her voice.

"'Oh, hush!' said I, 'if I'm to have any peace of mind in this house!'

"'But you won't go, miss? She loves you, I know she do. And think what
you might be leaving her to--what sort of tenant might come next. For
she can't go. She've been here ever since her father sold the place.
He died soon after. You musn't go!'

"Now I had resolved to go, but all of a sudden I felt how mean this
resolution was.

"'After all,' said I, 'there's nothing to be afraid of.'

"'That's it, miss; nothing at all. I don't even believe it's so very
uncommon. Why, I've heard my mother tell of farmhouses where the rooms
were swept every night as regular as clockwork, and the floors sanded,
and the pots and pans scoured, and all while the maids slept. They put
it down to the piskies; but we know better, miss, and now we've got the
secret between us we can lie easy in our beds, and if we hear anything,
say "God bless the child!" and go to sleep.'

"'Mrs. Carkeek,' said I, 'there's only one condition I have to make.'

"'What's that?'

"'Why, that you let me kiss you.'

"'Oh, you dear!' said Mrs. Carkeek as we embraced: and this was as close
to familiarity as she allowed herself to go in the whole course of my
acquaintance with her.

"I spent three years at Tresillack, and all that while Mrs. Carkeek
lived with me and shared the secret. Few women, I dare to say, were
ever so completely wrapped around with love as we were during those
three years. It ran through my waking life like a song: it smoothed my
pillow, touched and made my table comely, in summer lifted the heads of
the flowers as I passed, and in winter watched the fire with me and kept
it bright.

"'Why did I ever leave Tresillack?' Because one day, at the end of five
years, Farmer Hosking brought me word that he had sold the house--or was
about to sell it; I forget which. There was no avoiding it, at any
rate; the purchaser being a Colonel Kendall, a brother of the old
Squire.'

"'A married man?' I asked.

"'Yes, miss; with a family of eight. As pretty children as ever you
see, and the mother a good lady. It's the old home to Colonel Kendall.'

"'I see. And that is why you feel bound to sell.'

"'It's a good price, too, that he offers. You mustn't think but I'm
sorry enough--'

"'To turn me out? I thank you, Mr. Hosking; but you are doing the right
thing.'

"Since Mrs. Carkeek was to stay, the arrangement lacked nothing of
absolute perfection--except, perhaps, that it found no room for me.

"'_She_--Margaret-will be happy,' I said; 'with her cousins, you know.'

"'Oh yes, miss, she will be happy, sure enough,' Mrs. Carkeek agreed.

"So when the time came I packed up my boxes, and tried to be cheerful.
But on the last morning, when they stood corded in the hall, I sent Mrs.
Carkeek upstairs upon some poor excuse, and stepped alone into the
pantry.

"'Margaret!' I whispered.

"There was no answer at all. I had scarcely dared to hope for one.
Yet I tried again, and, shutting my eyes this time, stretched out both
hands and whispered:

"'Margaret!'

"And I will swear to my dying day that two little hands stole and
rested--for a moment only--in mine."

THE LADY OF THE SHIP

[_Or so much as is told of her by Paschal Tonkin, steward and major-domo
to the lamented John Milliton, of Pengersick Castle, in Cornwall: of her
coming in the Portugal Ship, anno 1526; her marriage with the said
Milliton and alleged sorceries; with particulars of the Barbary men
wrecked in Mount's Bay and their entertainment in the town of Market
Jew._]

My purpose is to clear the memory of my late and dear Master; and to
this end I shall tell the truth and the truth only, so far as I know it,
admitting his faults, which, since he has taken them before God, no man
should now aggravate by guess-work. That he had traffic with secret
arts is certain; but I believe with no purpose but to fight the Devil
with his own armoury. He never was a robber as Mr. Thomas St. Aubyn and
Mr. William Godolphin accused him; nor, as the vulgar pretended, a
lustful and bloody man. What he did was done in effort to save a
woman's soul; as Jude tells us, "_Of some have compassion, that are in
doubt; and others save, having mercy with fear, pulling them out of the
fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh_"--though this, alas!
my dear Master could not. And so with Jude I would end, praying for all
of us and ascribing praise _to the only wise God, our Saviour, who is
able to guard us from stumbling and set us faultless before His presence
with exceeding joy_.

It was in January, 1526, after a tempest lasting three days, that the
ship called the _Saint Andrew_, belonging to the King of Portugal, drove
ashore in Gunwallo Cove, a little to the southward of Pengersick.
She was bound from Flanders to Lisbon with a freight extraordinary
rich--as I know after a fashion by my own eyesight, as well as from the
inventory drawn up by Master Francis Porson, an Englishman, travelling
on board of her as the King of Portugal's factor. I have a copy of it
by me as I write, and here are some of Master Porson's items:--

8,000 cakes of copper, valued by him at 3,224 pounds.
18 blocks of silver, ' ' ' 2,250 '.
Silver vessels, plate, patens, ewers and
pots, beside pearls, precious stones,
and jewels of gold.
Also a chest of coined money, in amount 6,240 '.

There was also cloth of arras, tapestry, rich hangings, satins, velvets,
silks, camlets, says, satins or Bruges, with great number of bales of
Flemish and English cloth; 2,100 barber's basins; 3,200 laten
candlesticks; a great chest of shalmers and other instruments of music;
four sets of armour for the King of Portugal, much harness for his
horses, and much beside--the whole amounting at the least computation to
16,000 pounds in value. [1] And this I can believe on confirmation of
what I myself saw upon the beach.

But let me have done with Master Porson and his tale, which runs that
the _Saint Andrew_, having struck at the mouth of the cove, there
utterly perished; yet, by the grace and mercy of Almighty God, the
greater part of the crew got safely to land, and by help of many poor
folk dwelling in the neighbourhood saved all that was most valuable of
the cargo. But shortly after (says he) there came on the scene three
gentlemen, Thomas Saint Aubyn, William Godolphin, and John Milliton,
with about sixty men armed in manner of war with bows and swords, and
made an assault on the shipwrecked sailors and put them in great fear
and jeopardy; and in the end took from them all they had saved from the
wreck, amounting to 10,000 pounds worth of treasure--"which," says he,
"they will not yield up, nor make restitution, though they have been
called upon to do so."

So much then for the factor's account, which I doubt not he believed to
be true enough; albeit on his own confession he had lain hurt and
unconscious upon the beach at the time, and his tale rested therefore on
what he could learn by hearsay after his recovery; when--the matter
being so important--he was at trouble to journey all the way to London
and lay his complaint before the Portuguese ambassador. Moreover he
made so fair a case of it that the ambassador obtained of the English
Court a Commissioner, Sir Nicholas Fleming, to travel down and push
enquiries on the spot--where Master Porson did not scruple to repeat his
accusation, and to our faces (having indeed followed the Commissioner
down for that purpose). I must say I thought him a very honest man--not
to say a brave one, seeing what words he dared to use to Mr. Saint Aubyn
in his own house at Clowance, calling him a mere robber. I was there
when he said it and made me go hot and cold, knowing (if he did not)
that for two pins Mr. Saint Aubyn might have had him drowned like a
puppy. However, he chose to make nothing of an insult from a factor.
"_Mercator tantum,_" replied he, snapping his fingers, and to my great
joy; for any violence might have spoiled the story agreed on between
us--that is, between Mr. Saint Aubyn, Mr. Godolphin, and me who acted as
deputy for my Master.

This story of ours, albeit less honest, had more colour of the truth
than Master Porson's hearsay. It ran that Mr. Saint Aubyn, happening
near Gunwallo, heard of the wreck and rode to it, where presently Mr.
Godolphin and my Master joined him and helped to save the men; that, in
attempting to save the cargo also, a man of Mr. Saint Aubyn's--one Will
Carnarthur--was drowned; that, in fact, very little was rescued; and,
seeing the men destitute and without money to buy meat and drink, we
bought the goods in lawful bargain with the master. As for the assault,
we denied it, or that we took goods to the value of ten thousand pounds
from the sailors. All that was certainly known to be saved amounted to
about 20 pounds worth; and, in spite of many trials to recover more,
which failed to pay the charges of labour, the bulk of the cargo
remained in the ship and was broken up by the seas.

This was our tale, false in parts, yet a truer one than either of us,
who uttered it, believed. The only person in the plot (so to say) who
knew it to be true in substance was my Master. I, his deputy, took this
version from him to Clowance with a mind glad enough to be relieved by
my duty from having any opinion on the matter. On the one hand, I had
the evidence of my senses that the booty had been saved, and too much
wit to doubt that any other man would conclude it to be in my Master's
possession. On the other, I had never known him lie or deceive, or
engage me to further any deceit; his word was his bond, and by practice
my word was his bond also. Further, of this affair I had already begun
to wonder if a man's plain senses could be trusted, as you will hear
reason by-and-by. As for Mr. Saint Aubyn and Mr. Godolphin, they had no
doubt at all that my Master was lying, and that I had come wittingly to
further his lie. They would have drawn on him (I make no doubt) had he
brought the tale in person. From me, his intermediate, they took it as
the best to suit with the known truth and present to the Commissioner.
All Cornishmen are cousins, you may say. It comes to this, rather:
these gentlemen chose to accept my master's lie, and settle with him
afterwards, rather than make a clean breast and be forced to wring their
small shares out of the Exchequer. A neighbour can be persuaded,
terrified, forced; but London is always a long way off, and London
lawyers are the devil. I say freely that (knowing no more than they
did, or I) these two gentlemen followed a reasonable policy.

But, after we had fitted Sir Nicholas with our common story, and as I
was mounting my horse in Clowance courtyard, Mr. Saint Aubyn came close
to my stirrup and said this by way of parting:

"You will understand, Mr. Tonkin, that to-day's tale is for to-day.
But by God I will come and take my share--you may tell your master--and
a trifle over! And the next time I overtake you I promise to put a
bullet in the back of your scrag neck."

For answer to this--seeing that Master Porson stood at an easy distance
with his eye on us--I saluted him gravely and rode out of the courtyard.

Now the manner of the wreck was this, and our concern with it.
So nearly as I can learn, the _Saint Andrew_ came ashore at two hours
after noon: the date, the 20th of January, 1526, and the weather at the
time coarse and foggy with a gale yet blowing from the south-west or a
good west of south, but sensibly abating, and the tide wanting an hour
before low water.

It happened that Mr. Saint Aubyn was riding, with twenty men at his
back, homeward from Gweek, where he had spent three days on some private
business, when he heard news of the wreck at a farmhouse on the road to
Helleston: and so turning aside, he, whose dwelling lay farthest from
it, came first to the cove. The news reached us at Pengersick a little
after three o'clock; as I remember because my Master was just then
settled to dinner. But he rose at once and gave word to saddle in
haste, at the same time bidding me make ready to ride with him, and
fifteen others.

So we set forth and rode--the wind lulling, but the rain coming down
steadily--and reached Gunwallo Cove with a little daylight to spare.
On the beach there we found most of the foreigners landed, but seven of
them laid out starkly, who had been drowned or brought ashore dead
(for the yard had fallen on board, the day before, and no time left in
the ship's extremity to bury them): and three as good as dead--among
whom was Master Porson, with a great wound of the scalp; also everywhere
great piles of freight, chests, bales, and casks--a few staved and
taking damage from salt water and rain, but the most in apparent good
condition. The crew had worked very busily at the salving, and to the
great credit of men who had come through suffering and peril of death.
Mr. Saint Aubyn's band, too, had lent help, though by this time the
flowing of the tide forced them to give over. But the master (as one
might say) of their endeavours was neither the Portuguese captain nor
Mr. Saint Aubyn, but a young damsel whom I must describe more
particularly.

She was standing, as we rode down the beach, nigh to the water's edge;
with a group of men about her, and Mr. Saint Aubyn himself listening to
her orders. I can see her now as she turned at our approaching and she
and my Master looked for the first time into each other's eyes, which
afterwards were to look so often and fondly. In age she appeared
eighteen or twenty; her shape a mere girl's, but her face somewhat
older, being pinched and peaked by the cold, yet the loveliest I have
ever seen or shall see. Her hair, which seemed of a copper red,
darkened by rain, was blown about her shoulders, and her drenched blue
gown, hitched at the waist with a snakeskin girdle, flapped about her as
she turned to one or the other, using more play of hands than our
home-bred ladies do. Her feet were bare and rosy; ruddied doubtless, by
the wind and brine, but I think partly also by the angry light of the
sunsetting which broke the weather to seaward and turned the pools and
the wetted sand to the colour of blood. A hound kept beside her,
shivering and now and then lowering his muzzle to sniff the oreweed, as
if the brine of it puzzled him: a beast in shape somewhat like our
grey-hounds, but longer and taller, and coated like a wolf.

As I have tried to describe her she stood amid the men and the tangle of
the beach; a shape majestical and yet (as we drew closer) slight and
forlorn. The present cause of her gestures we made out to be a
dark-skinned fellow whom two of Saint Aubyn's men held prisoner with his
arms trussed behind him. On her other hand were gathered the rest of
the Portuguese, very sullen and with dark looks whenever she turned from
them to Saint Aubyn and from their language to the English. He, I could
see, was perplexed, and stood fingering his beard: but his face
brightened as he came a step to meet my Master.

"Ha!" said he, "you can help us, Milliton. You speak the Portuguese, I
believe?" (For my master was known to speak most of the languages of
Europe, having caught them up in his youth when his father's madness
forced him abroad. And I myself, who had accompanied him so far as
Venice, could pick my way in the _lingua Franca_.) "This fellow"--
pointing at the prisoner--"has just drawn a knife on the lady here; and
indeed would have killed her, but for this hound of hers. My fellows
have him tight and safe, as you see: but I was thinking by your leave to
lodge him with you, yours being the nearest house for the safe keeping
of such. But the plague is," says he, "there seems to be more in the
business than I can fathom: for one half of these drenched villains take
the man's part, while scarce one of them seems too well disposed towards
the lady: although to my knowledge she has worked more than any ten of
them in salving the cargo. And heaven help me if I can understand a
word of their chatter!"

My Master lifted his cap to her; and she lifted her eyes to him, but
never a word did she utter, though but a moment since she had been using
excellent English. Only she stood, slight and helpless and (I swear)
most pitiful, as one saying, "Here is my judge. I am content."

My Master turned to the prisoner and questioned him in the Portuguese.
But the fellow (a man taller than the rest and passably
straight-looking) would confess nothing but that his name was Gil Perez
of Lagos, the boatswain of the wrecked ship. Questioned of the assault,
he shook his head merely and shrugged his shoulders. His face was
white: it seemed to me unaccountably, until glancing down I took note of
a torn wound above his right knee on the inside, where the hound's teeth
had fastened.

"But who is the captain of the ship?" my Master demanded in Portuguese;
and they thrust forward a small man who seemed not over-willing.
Indeed his face had nothing to commend him, being sharp and yellow, with
small eyes set too near against the nose.

"Your name?" my Master demanded of him too.

"Affonzo Cabral," he answered, and plunged into a long tale of the loss
of his ship and how it happened. Cut short in this and asked concerning
the lady, he shrugged his shoulders and replied with an oath he knew
nothing about her beyond this, that she had taken passage with him at
Dunquerque for Lisbon, paying him beforehand and bearing him a letter
from the Bishop of Cambrai, which conveyed to him that she was bound on
some secret mission of politics to the Court of Lisbon.

As I thought, two or three of the men would have murmured something
here, but for a look from her, who, turning to my Master, said quietly
in good English:

"That man is a villain. My name is Alicia of Bohemia, and my mission
not to be told here in public. But he best knows why he took me for
passenger, and how he has behaved towards me. Yourselves may see how I
have saved his freight. And for the rest, sir"--here she bent her eyes
on my Master very frankly--"I have proved these men, and claim to be
delivered from them."

At this my Master knit his brows: and albeit he was a young man (scarce
past thirty) and a handsome, the deep wedge-mark showed between them as
I had often seen it show over the nose of the old man his father.

"I think," said he to Mr. Saint Aubyn, "this should be inquired into at
greater leisure. With your leave my men shall take the prisoner to
Pengersick and have him there in safe keeping. And if"--with a bow--"
the Lady Alicia will accept my poor shelter it will be the handier for
our examining of him. For the rest, cannot we be of service in rescuing
yet more of the cargo?"

But this for the while was out of question: the _Saint Andrew_ lying
well out upon the strand, with never fewer than four or five ugly
breakers between her and shore; and so balanced that every sea worked
her to and fro. Moreover, her mizzen mast yet stood, as by a miracle,
and the weight of it so strained at her seams that (thought I) there
could be very little left of her by the next ebb.

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