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

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The two peered into the parchment and drew back. "The Emperor--" I
heard the Commissioner mutter with an intake of breath.

"And, as you perceive, in his own handwriting." She folded up the paper
and, replacing it, addressed my Master. "Your visitors, sir, deserve
some refreshment for their pains and courtesy."

And that was the end of the conference. What that paper contained I
know as little as I know by what infernal sorcery it was prepared.
Master Porson folded it up tight in his hand, glancing dubiously at Sir
Nicholas. My lady stood smiling upon the both for a moment, then
dismissed me to the kitchens upon a pretended errand. They were gone
when I returned, nor did I again set eyes upon the Commissioner or the
factor. It is true that the Emperor did about this time break his
pledge with our King Henry and marry a princess of Portugal; and some of
high office in England were not sorry therefore. But of this enough.

As the days wore on and we heard no more of the wreck, my Master and
Mistress settled down to that retirement from the world which is by
custom allowed to the newly married, but which with them was to last to
the end. A life of love it was; but--God help us!--no life of
happiness; rather, in process of days, a life of torment. Can I tell
you how it was? At first to see them together was like looking through
a glass upon a picture; a picture gallant and beautiful yet removed
behind a screen and not of this world. Suppose now that by little and
little the glass began to be flawed, or the picture behind it to crumble
(you could not tell which) until when it smiled it smiled wryly, until
rocks toppled and figures fell askew, yet still kept up their pretence
of play against the distorted woodland. Nay, it was worse than this:
fifty times worse. For while the fair show tottered, my Master and
Mistress clung to their love; and yet it was just their love which kept
the foundations rocking.

They lived for each other. They neither visited nor received visits.
Yet they were often, and by degrees oftener, apart; my Master locked up
with his books, my Mistress roaming the walls with her hound or seated
by her lattice high on the seaward side of the castle. Sometimes (but
this was usually on moonlit nights or windless evenings when the sun
sank clear to view over our broad bay) she would take up her lute and
touch it to one of those outlandish love-chants with which she had first
wiled my Master's heart to her. As time went on, stories came to us
that these chants, which fell so softly on the ears of us as we went
about the rooms and gardens, had been heard by fishermen riding by their
nets far in the offing--so far away (I have heard) as the Scillies; and
there were tales of men who, as they listened, had seen the ghosts of
drowned mariners rising and falling on the moon-rays, or floating with
their white faces thrown back while they drank in the music; yea, even
echoing the words of the song in whispers like the flutter of birds'
wings.

When first the word crept about that she was a witch I cannot certainly
say. But in time it did; and, what is more--though I will swear that no
word of Gil Perez' confession ever passed my lips--the common folk soon
held it for a certainty that the cargo saved from the _Saint Andrew_ had
been saved by her magic only; that the plate and rich stuffs seen by my
own eyes were but cheating _simulacra_, and had turned into rubbish at
midnight, scarce an hour before the assault on the Portuguese.

I have wondered since if 'twas this rumour and some belief in it which
held Messrs. Saint Aubyn and Godolphin from offering any further attack
on us. You might say that it was open to them, so believing, to have
denounced her publicly. But in our country Holy Church had little
hold--scarce more than the King's law itself in such matters; and within
my memory it has always come easier to us to fear witch-craft than to
denounce it. Also (and it concerns my tale) the three years which
followed the stranding of the _Saint Andrew_ were remarkable for a great
number of wrecks upon our coast. In that short time we of our parish
and the men of St. Hilary upon our north were between us favoured with
no fewer than fourteen; the most of them vessels of good burden. Of any
hand in bringing them ashore I know our gentry to have been innocent.
Still, there were pickings; and finding that my Master held aloof from
all share in such and (as far as could be) held his servants aloof, our
neighbours, though not accepting this for quittance, forbore to press
the affair of the _Saint Andrew_ further than by spreading injurious
tales and whispers.

The marvel was that we of Pengersick (who reaped nothing of this
harvest) fell none the less under suspicion of decoying the vessels
ashore. More than once in my dealings with the fishermen and tradesmen
of Market Jew, I happened on hints of this; but nothing which could be
taken hold of until one day a certain Peter Chynoweth of that town,
coming drunk to Pengersick with a basket of fish, blurted out the tale.
Said he, after I had beaten him down to a reasonable price, "Twould be
easy enough, one would think, to spare an honest man a groat of the
fortune Pengersick makes on these dark nights."

"Thou lying thief!" said I. "What new slander is this?"

"Come, come," says he, looking roguish; "that won't do for me that have
seen the false light on Cuddan Point more times than I can count; and so
has every fisherman in the bay."

Well, I kicked him through the gate for it, and flung his basket after
him; but the tale could not be so dismissed. "It may be," thought I,
"some one of Pengersick has engaged upon this wickedness on his own
account"; and for my Master's credit I resolved to keep watch.

I took therefore the porter into my secret, who agreed to let me through
the gate towards midnight without telling a soul. I took a sheepskin
with me and a poignard for protection; and for a week, from midnight to
dawn, I played sentinel on Cuddan Point, walking to and fro, or
stretched under the lee of a rock whence I could not miss any light
shown on the headland, if Peter Chynoweth's tale held any truth.

By the eighth trial I had pretty well made up my mind (and without
astonishment) that Peter Chynoweth was a liar. But scarcely had I
reached my post that night when, turning, I descried a radiance as of a
lantern, following me at some fifty paces. On the instant I gripped my
poignard and stepped behind a boulder. The light drew nearer, came, and
passed me. To my bewilderment it was no lantern, but an open flame,
running close along the turf and too low for anyone to be carrying it:
nor was the motion that of a light which a man carries.
Moreover, though it passed me within half-a-dozen yards and lit up the
stone I stood behind, I saw nobody and heard no footstep, though the
wind (which was south-westerly) blew from it to me. In this breeze the
flame quivered, though not violently but as it were a ball of fire
rolling with a flickering crest.

It went by, and I followed it at something above walking pace until upon
the very verge of the head-land, where I had no will to risk my neck, it
halted and began to be heaved up and down much like the poop-light of a
vessel at sea. In this play it continued for an hour at least; then it
came steadily back towards me by the way it had gone, and as it came I
ran upon it with my dagger. But it slipped by me, travelling at speed
towards the mainland; whither I pelted after it hot-foot, and so across
the fields towards Pengersick. Strain as I might, I could not overtake
it; yet contrived to keep it within view, and so well that I was bare a
hundred yards behind when it came under the black shadow of the castle
and without pause glided across the dry moat and so up the face of the
wall to my lady's window, which there overhung. And into this window it
passed before my very eyes and vanished.

I know not what emboldened me, but from the porter's lodge I went
straight up to my Master's chamber, where (though the hour must have
been two in the morning or thereabouts) a light was yet burning.
Also--but this had become ordinary--a smell of burning gums and herbs
filled the passage leading to his door. He opened to my knock, and
stood before me in his dressing-gown of sables--a tall figure of a man
and youthful, though already beginning to stoop. Over his shoulder I
perceived the room swimming with coils of smoke which floated in their
wreaths from a brazier hard by the fireplace.

I think his first motion was to thrust me away; but I caught him by the
hand, and with many protestations broke into my tale, giving him no time
to forbid me. And presently he drew me inside, and shutting the door,
stood upright by the table, facing me with his fingers on the rim as if
they rested there for support.

"Paschal," said he, when at length I drew back, "this must not come to
my lady's ears. She has been ailing of late."

"Ay, sir, and long since: of a disease past your curing."

"God help us! I hope not," said he; then broke out violently: "She is
innocent, Paschal; innocent as a child!"

"Innocent!" cried I, in a voice which showed how little I believed.

"Paschal," he went on, "you are my servant, but my friend also, I hope.
Nay, nay, I know. I swear to you, then, these things do but happen in
her sleep. In her waking senses she is mine, as one day she shall be
mine wholly. But at night, when her will is dissolved in sleep, the
evil spirit wakes and goes questing after its master."

"Mahound?" I stammered, quaking.

"Be it Satan himself," said he, very low and resolute, "I will win her
from him, though my own soul be the ransom."

"Dear my Master," I began, and would have implored him on my knees; but
he pointed to the door. "I will win her," he repeated. "What you have
seen to-night happens more rarely now. Moreover, the summer is
beginning--"

He paused: yet I had gathered his meaning. "There will be less peril
for the ships for a while," said I.

Said he: "To _them_ she intends no harm. It is for her master the light
waves. Paschal, I am an unhappy man!" He flung a hand to his forehead,
but recovering himself peered at me under the shadow of it. "If you
could watch--often--as you have done to-night--you might protect others
from seeing--"

The wisdom of this at least I saw, and gave him my promise readily.
Upon this understanding (for no more could be had) I withdrew me.

The next day, therefore, I moved my bed to a turret-chamber on the angle
of the south-eastern wall whence I could keep my lady's window in view.
I was never a man to need much sleep: but if, through the year which
followed, the apparition escaped once or twice without my cognisance, I
dare take oath this was the extent of it. It appeared more rarely, as
my Master had promised: and in the end (I think) scarce above once a
month. In form it never varied from the cresseted globe of flame I had
first seen, and always it took the path across the fields towards Cuddan
Point. No sound went with it, or announced its going or return: and
while it was absent, my lady's chamber would be utterly dark and silent.
My custom was not to follow it (which I had proved to be useless), but
to let myself out and patrol the walls, satisfying myself that no
watchers lurked about the castle. I understood now that Pengersick was
reported throughout the neighbourhood to be haunted: and such a report
is not the worst protection. These vague tales kept aloof the country
people who, but for them, had almost certainly happened on the secret.
And night after night while I watched, my Master wrestled with the Evil
One in his room.

The last time I saw the apparition was on the night of May 10th, 1529,
more than three years after my lady's first coming to Pengersick.
I was prepared for it: for she had been singing at her window a great
part of the afternoon, and I had learnt to be warned by this mood.
The night was a dark one, with flying clouds and a stiff breeze blowing
up from the south-east. The flame left my lady's window at the usual
hour--a few minutes after midnight--but returned some while before its
due time. In ordinary it would be away for an hour and a half, or from
that to two hours, but this night I had scarcely begun my rounds before
I saw it returning across the fields. Nor was this the only surprise.
For as I watched it up the wall and saw it gain my lady's window, I
heard the hound within lift up its voice in a long, shuddering howl.

I lost no time, but made my way to my Master's room. He, too, had heard
the dog's howl, and was strangely perturbed. "It means something.
It means something," he kept repeating. He had already run to his
wife's chamber, but found her in a deep slumber and the hound (which
always slept on the floor at her bed's foot) composing itself to sleep
again, with jowl dropped on its fore-paws.

The next morning I had fixed to ride into the Market Jew to fetch a
packet of books which was waiting there for my Master. But at the
entrance of the town I found the people in great commotion, the cause of
which turned out to be a group of Turk men gathered at the hither end of
the causeway leading to the Mount. One told me they were Moslems (which
indeed was apparent at first sight) and that their ship had run ashore
that night, under the Mount; but with how much damage was doubtful.
She lay within sight, in a pretty safe position, and not so badly fixed
but I guessed the next tide would float her if her bottom were not
broken. The Moslems (nine in all) had rowed ashore in their boat and
landed on the causeway; but with what purpose they had no chance to
explain: for the inhabitants, catching sight of their knives and
scymeters, could believe in nothing short of an intent to murder and
plunder; and taking courage in numbers, had gathered (men and women) to
the causeway-head to oppose them. To be sure these fears had some
warrant in the foreigners' appearance: who with their turbans, tunics,
dark faces and black naked legs made up a show which Market Jew had
never known before nor (I dare say) will again.

Nor had the mildness of their address any effect but to raise a fresh
commotion. For, their leader advancing with outstretched hands and
making signals that he intended no mischief but rather sued for
assistance, at once a cry went up, "The Plague!" "The Plague!" at which
I believe the crowd would have scattered like sheep had not a few sturdy
volunteers with pikes and boat-hooks forbidden his nearer approach.

Into this knot the conference had locked itself when I rode up and--the
crowd making way for me--addressed the strangers in the _lingua Franca_,
explaining that my Master of Pengersick was a magistrate and would be
forward to help them either with hospitality or in lending aid to get
their ship afloat; further that they need have no apprehension of the
crowd, which had opposed them in fear, not in churlishness; yet it might
be wise for the main body to stay and keep guard over the cargo while
their spokesman went with me to Pengersick.

To this their leader at once consented; and we presently set forth
together, he walking by my horse with an agile step and that graceful
bearing which I had not seen since my days of travel: a bearded swarthy
man, extraordinarily handsome in Moorish fashion and distinguished from
his crew not only by authority as patron of the ship, but by a natural
dignity. I judged him about forty. Me he treated with courtesy, yet
with a reticence which seemed to say he reserved his speech for my
Master. Of the wreck he said nothing except that his ship had been by
many degrees out of her bearings: and knowing that the Moorish disasters
in Spain had thrown many of their chiefs into the trade of piracy I was
contented to smoke such an adventurer in this man, and set him down for
one better at fighting than at navigation.

With no more suspicion than this I reached Pengersick and, bestowing the
stranger in the hall, went off to seek my Master. For the change that
came over my dear lord's face as he heard my errand I was in no way
prepared. It was terrible.

"Paschal," he cried, sinking into a chair and spreading both hands
helplessly on the table before him, "it is _he!_ Her time is come, and
mine!"

It was in vain that I reasoned, protesting (as I believed) that the
stranger was but a chance pirate cast ashore by misadventure; and as
vain that, his fears infecting me, I promised to go down and get rid of
the fellow on some pretence.

"No," he insisted, "the hour is come. I must face it: and what is more,
Paschal, I shall win. Another time I shall be no better prepared.
Bring him to my room and then go and tell my lady that I wish to speak
with her."

I did so. On ushering in the stranger I saw no more than the bow with
which the two men faced each other: for at once my Master signalled me
to run on my further errand. Having delivered my message at my lady's
door, I went down to the hall, and lingering there, saw her pass along
the high gallery above the dais towards my lord's room, with the hound
at her heels.

Thence I climbed the stair to my own room: locked the door and anon
unlocked it, to be ready at sudden need. And there I paced hour after
hour, without food, listening. From the courtyard came the noise of the
grooms chattering and splashing: but from the left wing, where lay my
Master's rooms, no sound at all. Twice I stole out along the
corridors and hung about the stair head: but could hear nothing, and
crept back in fear to be caught eavesdropping.

It was about five in the afternoon (I think), all was still in the
courtyard, when I heard the click of a latch and, running to the window,
saw the porter closing his wicket gate. A minute later, on a rise
beyond the wall, I spied the Moor. His back was towards the castle and
he was walking rapidly towards Market Jew: and after him padded my
lady's hound.

I hurried along the passages and knocked at my Master's door. No one
answered. I could not wait to knock again, but burst it open.

On the floor at my feet lay my Master, and hard by the window my
Mistress with her hands crossed upon a crucifix. My Master had no
crucifix: but his face wore a smile--a happier one than it had worn for
years.

[1] About 150,000 pounds in present money.

FROZEN MARGIT

_A Narrative of the sufferings of Mr. Obed Lanyon, of Vellingey-Saint
Agnes, Cornwall; Margit Lanyon, his wife; and seventeen persons (mostly
Americans) shipwrecked among the Quinaiult Tribes of the N.W. Coast of
America, in the winter of 1807-8. With some remarkable Experiences of
the said Margit Lanyon, formerly Pedersen. Written by the Survivor,
Edom Lanyon, sometime a Commander in the service of the Honourable East
India Company._

My twin brother Obed and I were born on the 21st of March, 1759
(he being the elder by a few minutes), at Vellingey-St. Agnes, or
St. Ann's, a farm on the north coast of Cornwall, owned and cultivated
by our father Renatus Lanyon. Our mother was a Falmouth woman,
daughter of a ship's captain of that port: and I suppose it was this
inclined us to a sea-faring life. At any rate, soon after our fifteenth
birthday we sailed (rather against our father's wish) on a short
coasting voyage with our grandfather--whose name was William Dustow.

A second voyage in the early summer of 1776 took us as far as the
Thames. It happened that the famous Captain Cook was just then
recruiting for his third and (as it proved) his last voyage of
discovery. This set us talking and planning, and the end was that we
stole ashore and offered ourselves. Obed had the luck to be picked.
Though very like in face, I was already the taller by two inches; and no
doubt the Captain judged I had outgrown my strength. But it surprised
me to be rejected when Obed was taken; and disappointed me more: for,
letting alone the prospect of the voyage, we two (as twins, and our
parents' only children) were fond of each other out of the common
degree, and had never thought to be separated.

To speak first of Obed:--Captain Cook put some questions, and finding
that we were under our grandfather's care, would do nothing without his
consent. We returned to the ship and confessed to the old man, who
pretended to be much annoyed. But next day he put on his best clothes
and went in search of the great seaman, to Whitehall; and so the matter
was arranged. Obed sailed in July on board the _Discovery_; shared the
dangers of that voyage, in which the ships followed up the N.W. Coast of
America and pushed into Behring's Strait beyond the 70th parallel; was a
witness, on February 4th, 1779, of his commander's tragical end; and
returned to England in October, 1780. Eleven years later he made
another voyage to the same N.W. American Coast; this time as master's
mate under Vancouver, who had kept an interest in him since they sailed
together under Cook, and thought highly of him as a practical navigator
and draughtsman. It was my brother who, under Vancouver, drew up the
first chart of the Straits of Fuca, which Cook had missed: and I have
been told (by a Mr. G--, a clerk to the Admiralty) that on his return he
stood well for a lieutenant's commission--the rule of the Service being
stretched now and then to favour these circumnavigating seamen, many of
whom worked their way aft from the hawse-hole to the quarter deck.
But my father and mother dying just then, and the former having slipped
a particular request into his will, Obed threw up the sea and settled
down in Vellingey as a quiet yeoman farmer.

Meanwhile, in 1779, I had entered the sea service of the Honourable East
India Company; and with passable good fortune had risen in it pretty
fast. Enough to say, that by the spring of 1796 I was looking forward
to the command of a ship. Just then my fortune deserted me. In a
sudden fear of French invasion, our Government bought the four new ships
which the Company had building (and a bad bargain they proved).
This put a stop for the time to all chance of promotion; and a sharp
attack of jaundice falling on top of my disappointments, I took the
usual decrease of pay and the Board's promise to remember my services on
a proper occasion, and hauled ashore to Vellingey for a holiday and a
thorough refit of health.

I believe that the eight or nine following months which Obed and I spent
together were the happiest in our two lives. He was glad enough to
shoulder off the small business of the farm and turn--as I have seen so
many men play, in a manner, at the professions they have given over--to
his favourite amusement of sounding the coast of Vellingey and
correcting the printed charts. He kept a small lugger mainly for this
purpose, and plied her so briskly that he promised to know the
sea-bottom between Kelsey Head and Godrevy Rock better than his own
fields. As for me, after years of salt water and stumping decks, I
asked nothing better than to steer a plough and smell broken soil, and
drowse after supper in an armchair, with good tobacco and Obed for
company.

In this way we passed the winter of 1796-7; until the lambing season,
which fell midway in February. The year opened wet, with fresh south
westerly winds, which in the second week chopped suddenly; and for four
days a continuous freezing gale blew on us from the N.W. It was then
that the lambs began to drop; and for three nights I exchanged pipe and
fireside for a lantern and the lower corner of Friar's Parc at the back
of the towans, where the ewes were gathered in the lew.[1] They kept us
so busy that for forty-eight hours we neither changed our clothes (at
least, I did not) nor sat down to a meal. The sand about Vellingey is
always driving, more or less; and the gale so mixed it up with fine snow
that we made our journeys to and from the house, so to speak, blindfold,
and took our chance of the drifts. But the evening of the 11th promised
better. The wind dropped, and in an hour fell to a flat calm: then,
after another hour, began to draw easily off shore--the draught itself
being less noticeable than the way in which it smoothed down the heavy
sea running. Though the cold did not lift, the weather grew tolerable
once more: and each time I crossed the townplace[2] with a lamb in my
arms, I heard the surf running lower and lower in the porth below
Vellingey.

By day-break (the 12th) it was fallen to nothing: the sky still holding
snow, but sky and sea the same colour; a heavy blueish grey, like steel.
I was coming over the towans, just then, with a lamb under either arm
(making twelve, that night) when I happened to look seaward, and there
saw a boat tossing, about a gunshot from the shore.

She was a long boat, painted white; very low in the sheer, and curved at
stem and stern like a Norwegian; her stem rounded off without a transom,
and scarcely bluffer than her bows. She carried a mast, stepped right
forward; but no sail. She was full of people. I counted five sitting,
all white with snow--one by the mast, three amidships, and one in the
stern sheets, steering. At least, he had a hand on the tiller: but the
people had given over pulling, and the boat without steerage-way was
drifting broadside-on towards the shore with the set of the tide.

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